


"Ending My Nightmare"

by chroniclesofatimelord



Series: Chronicles of a Time-Lord [2]
Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (1963), Doctor Who (2005), Frankenstein - Mary Shelley, Nightmares - Fandom, bad dreams - Fandom, werewolf - Fandom
Genre: Adelaine, Dr. Udon Frankenstein, Gen, Hiram - Freeform, Maggie - Freeform, Porfirio Pennington
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-08
Updated: 2017-05-08
Packaged: 2018-10-29 15:48:42
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 36,467
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10857129
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chroniclesofatimelord/pseuds/chroniclesofatimelord
Summary: "Ending My Nightmare" is written by Robert J. Meddings. This particular Doctor Who adventures find themselves in a place called New Transylvania in the far future. The story is a homage to all the horror icons from the Universal Horror pictures from the 30s and 40s.The Doctor and TJ find themselves trapped in a living nightmare when Frankenstein castle is overrun by monsters and bad dreams. Can the Doctor work with Dr. Udon Frankenstein, descendant of the original, to find a way to stop the plague of horror from spreading? Or will they meet a grisly end beneath the midnight moon?





	"Ending My Nightmare"

"Ending My Nightmare"  
By Robert J. Meddings

Part One  
Chapter one  
The clashing winds roared in the cobbled streets, fending under the raging storm, and there's a horde of shadows threading between houses in the long night. A dog barked in the cemetery as he looked for a friend.  
Those tombstones looked like a stubble of jutting teeth including the few crosses sticking out of the ground.  
A flock of birds rustled with a clatter while looking for shelter from the hailing rain. The thunder belched like an old man's laugh.  
This small town looked like a slump while the restless glee of the storm worked over it in a rampage. It spoke with a clear answer of booms in the skies. Sometimes the shadows looked like they was watching.  
Down the street creaked a barn door that sounded like a torturous groan. Some knotted houses sat like stranded heaps. A web of lightening crackled across the clouds like burned smudges, a terrifying scrawl of lines.  
Now two people stepped into the street as they moved alongside the houses, working their way to find shelter. One was a man who shrugged off the rain while the other walked a tall, lean woman of splendid form.  
They headed towards the three-story building which towered with a candid height, and the wasteland of darkness garbled the town in a swallowing blight. It was very rash struggle in the night.  
It crawled over the Colonial looking town with a heavy presence, and the twist of shadows poured over the side streets as well like suffocating pleasures. The cold splatter of the storm clashed into the streets below.  
The woman took the lead as she crossed what looked like the main road, and the man followed her in the town district. They tried to get out of the storm as the large three-story building welcomed them.  
“This way,” the woman said.  
This town looked eighteen century, and there stood many things of old: the stagecoaches and the horses, the stables and the wooden houses. It was easy to see the unused vendor's wagon sitting in the road.  
This wasn't a happy place. Now the rain turned on the approaching visitors who braved the storm. Now the rippling beast of nature poured thunderously while the whooshing winds clattered with mad clatter. They were strangers slinging across the gravel-pitted road for a safe place to rest. 

Chapter two  
The woman in the black robes pointed to the sign in the window that said, “Vacancy.” She made a nod while moving towards the front door. Where else was she going to go in this desperate, fierce night?  
It was hardly a serene and comfortable town. Such chipper places nestled in the cesspool of darkness while the storm boomed above in a cantankerous mood. The rule of anger in the skies became overpowering.  
The woman stepped into the inn while a snippet of lightening flashed behind her, giving her an outline. She helped herself into the crowded room that was framed with people sitting at wooden tables.  
Some of them were toying with their food with knives and forks. Some of them engaged themselves in the fine sport of conversation. The woman jerked her head up to reveal her pretty features.  
Some of the men in the room sneered as their eyes stirred away with indifference. There raked another burst of lightening that flashed in the skies just as the foreign visitor shut the door.  
He caught sight of the nightmarish maze of darkness in the streets, the sway of the dark lifting around the row of houses. The town stretched with a yawn while the ominous storm crawled across the village.  
“How do you do?” the woman said.  
It was a very hard crowd to cheer the audience, and their long faces followed the strangers stepping down the empty aisle riddled with tidbits of trash.  
The woman wore the Victorian garb draped over her shoulders, a ruffled shirt and a soft clash of long coat which seemed to suit her. The layout of shirts and coats was a masterpiece for her.  
Her loyal guard remained at her side like a good friend who covered her back. He was a Chinese man with a bow hooked over his shoulder.  
The men seated around at the tables were like an ugly flock, and several minutes of silence followed in the room. More long shadows poured into the room while the candles shifted.  
It could take some time to settle here. 

Chapter three  
The gamblers were at the table looking more like hound dogs feasting on a meal. The conversation died down once they greeted the new strangers, and the hallow of their voices rang with mutters.  
Someone cleared his throat while he stared on. The man's face clenched with a sneer as if he ate bad cheese. The storm raged on like a pestering monster, hearing the booming voice of the gods. The innkeeper tapped his fingers on the counter while he stared on the newcomers.  
“I don't think we're wanted here,” the Chinese man said.  
“Nonsense,” the woman said.  
She pushed aside the long poetry of midnight from her face. Her soft features offered a look of intellectual property. Her eyes gazed around the room with a flutter of interest. She wasn't afraid of being in a room full of men.  
Oh, the building looked like wood screaming with old age. The windows were silence in sadness until another flicker of lightening boasted with a savage thrill.  
Her flowering beauty, and raw confidence, still didn't persuade the town's people.  
She saw the innkeeper behind the counter, a blocky man with a stiff neck, walrus mustache, and a balding sight for a head. Musky, muscle and scowling.  
His bellowing belly stuck out like a tire while his white cheeks were not fat, only a stronghold of fatigue. He wore a vest and a pair of gray trousers that hanged like an old rack. He looked like a man who worked all his life and was not happy. The others grew feral with glistening stares.  
“What d'you want at this time of night?” the innkeeper said.  
“What else? Room and board,” the woman said. “And food.”  
“Oh, a demanding one, aye?”  
“We've come a long way on our journey, and would like to freshen ourselves up with a meal. Do you mind?”  
“Yes.”  
“You're kidding, right?” the Chinese man said.  
“This is not a night to be taking a stroll in, sir,” the innkeeper said.  
“Yeah, I noticed.”  
“Well, I hope the rudeness will be a thing of the past,” the woman said.  
She slapped down some paper bills and coins that looked like an elusive gold pot. It looked enough to buy a kingdom. The coins looked alien.  
The innkeeper fiddled the coins with his finger, glancing over with a snide grin. It was certainly a good bribe.  
“There will be room and board for each of us,” the woman said. “You understand?”  
“Will you be staying long?”  
“Indefinitely.”  
“That could be problematic.”  
“I'm surprised that you stay in business with an attitude like that,” the Chinese man barked.  
“Hmm! I recommend that you leave in the morning,” the innkeeper said. “We don't take kindly to strangers.”  
“Room please,” the woman countered.  
“All right, a stubborn type,” the innkeeper said. “Wait on a minute while I get the paperwork.”

Chapter four  
The innkeeper rambled along the counter, searching through the drawers, and his bulging hands grew awkward. There may have been a time when he could hold a gun or climb a mountain. Nowadays he would be lucky to hold a kettle over the stove oven.  
He fished through the papers to get the sign-in book, giving a heavy sigh that was anywhere between anger and annoyance. His bottled frame fueled with stifling strength as he continued to search with vain effort.  
“Maggie? Maggie!” the innkeeper shouted.  
There peeped a voice from inside the kitchen, and you could hear she sounded a little frightened.  
“Yes, daddy?”  
“How come I can't find the guest list? It can't have walked away on its own.”  
“It's in the same place as always, daddy,” Maggie said.  
“I don't see it.”  
“Just look under the pile of paper that I just straightened out.”  
“Huh? There it is. I wish you wouldn't do that.”  
“I'm sorry.”  
“You're always cleaning everything and moving things around.”  
“I'll be in the kitchen, daddy,” Maggie said.  
There was a pretty, young girl peeping through the kitchen door, and she popped her head back with a vanishing act. This must be Maggie. She retreated into the kitchen with haste.  
Though she seemed to be the only moment of beauty in an inferno of darkness that was this forsaken town. She seemed to be like an alone angle in a town that was hell.  
“We should have skipped town,” the Chinese man said.  
“Where's your sense of adventure?” the woman said.  
“I didn't bring it.”  
The innkeeper turned his back to the strangers as he grabbed the guest list from the paper pile. The air grew dank with anguish as someone coughed in the room. It sounded more like a bible class in here rather than a proper inn. He handed the woman a fountain pen.  
The loud thunder continued its charade outside as it clattered around the town like a vapid beast growling.  
His bigger-than-average hand had some tufts of hair growing on top, and he fetched the pen with ease. At least he knew where the pen was. It would have been embarrassing if he didn't.  
“My name is Porfirio Pennington. You're in Pennington Inn and I'll be your host.”  
“Splendid,” the woman said.  
“I'll need to get your name and address.”  
“I'm the Doctor,” the woman said. “And this is my friend TJ.”  
The innkeeper looked up with shock splattered across his face while the others in the room struggled with the emotional wreckage of glares. Some of them looked like they swallowed a canary.

Chapter five  
Their necks craned as they glanced over their shoulders, and the social butterflies of this room kept their mouths shut like they found out a secret. The world just got a little stranger.  
Porfirio chewed on his lips a bit as he stood idle for a moment. As if he was tossing up the idea of refusing service to the woman or helping her along. The crowd grew more elusive.  
“You ain't by any chance the daughter of Dr. Van Helsing?” Porfirio asked.  
“Not at all,” the Doctor said.  
“You're a doctor of medicine, aye? We don't get a lot of ladies around here with degrees. Or men for that matter.”  
“I'm a doctor of everything.”  
“That's something you don't see very often.”  
Someone from the table across the room reared his head from a spread of cards in his hands.  
“Maybe she's Dr. Van Helsing? No one's ever told us that Van Helsing is a woman,” the man said.  
“Shut up, Hiram,” Porfirio said.  
“I was only trying to help,” Hiram snarled.  
“You're not.”  
“I notice you're treating it like a bad thing,” the Doctor said.  
“Not really,” Porfirio said. “We like to have our town stay quest, calm. That's how we like to keep things. People of medicine gets folks whiled up here.”  
“I'm sorry to hear that, but it doesn't change the fact that we need room and board,” the Doctor said. “Right, TJ?”  
“Yeah, I need a place to rest my feet,” TJ said.  
One of the gamblers, Hiram, lifted his face again from the game, his eyes swooping with darkness. Small daggers of fear pricked his face as the candlelight soaked his features. Hiram sat huddled in his chair like a doomed man.  
Flashes of lightening boomed like a festival of bright winkles. Another aggressive crackle of thunder could be heard outside that sounded like the skies were raging war with each other.  
“You're a doctor of vam—?” he started to say.  
“Shhh!” the others around the table roared.  
A bearded man wearing a musky coat and old pants slapped Hiram across the back of his head. Hiram was like a little kid compared to the others being the youngest of the bunch. Clean-shaved too.  
“Never mind that,” Porfirio said. “We got ourselves someone of education in our midst Where are you from, m'lady?”  
“Abroad,” the Doctor said.  
She wrote the name on the guest list, her penmanship was very easy to read. She finished signing the dotted line and turned the sheet back to the innkeeper. Porfirio looked down at the paper, reading along the lines.  
“Doctor Jane Smith, he? I can see that in writing, ma'am,” Porfirio said. “A placed called Gal.. Galli... I'm not sure if I ever heard of it.”  
“Gallifrey in the within the constellation of Kasterborous. I'm sure you wouldn't have heard of it.”  
In an added haste, the Doctor leaned her head over her shoulder to give a sideline to her companion.  
“Not to mention that it's some two hundred and fifty million light years from earth,” she said in a low whisper.  
“Is that somewhere in the Pisces-Cetus Supercluster Complex? Or in the constellation of Kasterborous?" Porfirio said.  
Now it was the Doctor's turn to be surprised at hearing the knowledge of other worlds coming straight out of the innkeeper's mouth. She assumed that this was nothing more than a eighteenth century town in the middle of a broad storm that struck the grounds like a dark fever.  
She looked around to see the number of people sitting at their tables, hearing the sputter of gossip between them. They moved like cowards in the make-shift while the candles flickered like lively hooks of brightness.  
“Perhaps we could freshen ourselves up with some food on the table,” the Doctor said.  
“All right, doctor of medicine,” Porfirio said. “We'll get out some proper munch.”  
“Thank you.”

Chapter six  
The travelers took the table to the furthest right, hoping to sit out of earshot. The Doctor made a commanding presence while anchoring herself on the bench seat.  
The Doctor noticed the musky floor—old, dried, like a shaky leaf that threatened to collapse. Another berserk thunder ripped through the skies like dire announcement. The swirl of rain pattered on the rooftops which made the village feel even smaller.  
The young maid named Maggie stepped out from the roasting embers of the kitchen to bring the grub to the newfound travelers at the table. She nodded to the guests while doing a curtsey, her pretty features bookended by the locks of golden hair. She looked like a girl who still looked for her prince... never found him.  
So she got the kind of face that any man could fall for, a swaying charity of beauty. She nodded to TJ too as she gave him a sneaking smile. She got the kind of innocence that made you think she could grow fairy wings and fly away.  
“I hope you enjoy your stay,” Maggie said.  
“It's nice to be here,” TJ said.  
“If the weather agrees tomorrow, there is a park and a carnival at the edge of town.”  
“I hope to see it.”  
“Me too.”  
Maggie made another curtsey, a little more pronounced than last time. She made a beeline for the kitchen like she received another around of affection from a possible suitor.  
“Oh, I can see why you changed your mind about leaving,” the Doctor said.  
“Not everything is about women,” TJ said.  
“Thought you were still getting over Yuki,” the Doctor pointed out.  
“She'll have a special place in my heart.”  
“You do change gears often.”  
They were served broth and bread on a late, and a bowl of steamed vegetables that looked not half bad. It was adequate food that could still wet the appetite of a greedy king.  
The Doctor took a small piece of bread and ate it, breaking off pieces with her hands. She ate like a bird. Though the bread was hard as a rock, she managed to put hot butter on to make it edible. The broth was very good as it settled in the belly nicely.  
“There's one thing I've noticed since I regenerated into a woman,” the Doctor said to her friend. “My appetite has gotten a lot bigger.”  
“Oh?” TJ said.  
“I don't like it.”  
The Doctor lifted her head while tossing her midnight dark hair from her face, seeing the townsfolk watching her from the corner of her eyes. They looked like conspiracy nuts hobbling together, waiting for the right moment. A flicker of fire from the candles poured over their faces with a painted ease.  
Yet the place was cold, seething, and the cold snide of wind tore through the door like small reminders. This knotted tension fell between the people who stayed in their seats while the storm bellowed again like a wounded lion, razing, tearing, lashing at the small, frightened village.  
“So will this Dr. Van Helsing be coming here tonight?” the Doctor said. “I like to meet him.”  
“That name is spoke in whispers,” Porfirio said while wiping the counter. “Show a little respect, aye?”  
“So what happened to him?”  
“He's running a little late. Could be a horse carriage accident? None of us know.”  
“I like to know more about him,” the Doctor said. “Or this place.”  
“I wish you wouldn't mention his name. Or his...”  
Porfirio made a motion with his head, glaring out the boarded window, but anyone could still see a slice of scenery of the sitting castle on the mountain, a ragged structure that looked heavy and tired.  
The lightening bursts crackled around it as the high pillars raked with stone and mortar, a stronghold that fixed like a regaling beast of architecture. The castle stood on the far edge of the deep, black forest that glistened with rakes of lightening.  
“What's wrong?” the Doctor said.  
“I would suggest you keep the windows shut tonight,” Porfirio said.  
“What if I like the breeze?”  
“That kind of defiance will bring you trouble. And lock the door too.”  
“You're expecting guests?” the Doctor chimed.  
“You're talking too much,” Hiram said to the innkeeper.  
“Yeah, you keep hiding in the back of the room” Porfirio snarled.  
TJ grabbed the spoon as he tried the broth, and he liked it enough. He gave the Doctor a stare from across the table.  
“Friendly place,” TJ said.  
“It's odd. This whole set-up feelings like a page from a literary book,” the Doctor said.  
“Sorry, I don't know of it.”  
“It's well after your time,” the Doctor added. “Better eat up. I don't think the folks are chatty tonight.”  
Her friend TJ decided to take a break while using the napkin to wipe his mouth. The warm glitter of the fire from the kitchen stoked the mood, and it made hm feel a little better feeling the warmth of the hearth.  
TJ would have preferred having a drink called rice mead which he described as a drink from heaven. He missed that part of China very much often brewed north of the Yellow River.  
There was food at the table, and he shouldn't complain. Outside the clatter of storm mashed against the country grounds with stitches of lightening. Another hellish break of thunder rumbled with loud applause.  
It was a good thing the Doctor didn't have any extra baggage to bring along. She still had a few things she could depend on, namely her sonic screwdriver, psychic paper and a Chinese archer. 

Chapter seven  
The spiraling, wooden stairway climbed like a swirl towards the next floor. It proved a good route well away from the besotted men leaning in their chairs and soaking in their beers like frightened children.  
Now it felt like the room flooded with a cheerless mood, and the place was shared by a bunch of old grandpas. The stairway fought silently away from the crowd as wooden stairs beckoned.  
The Doctor finished the soup and bread before sweeping across the room towards the stairway. Some of the men studied her as she walked while her footsteps creaked over the yawning floor. Her hand reached out towards the wooden railing as she tested the first steps of the stairs. Despite the grinding weight of her foot on the wooden step, and the creaking wood, she hoisted herself up.  
On the way up, like a persistent caretaker, the innkeeper strolled at a crawling pace. His face grew into a burden while his stooping shoulders lured with a heavy sigh.  
His tottering form swooped with a presence as he brought with the Doctor and TJ about midway on the stairway. Her long robes wrapped around her womanly curves making her look like an angel of death.  
This Pennington Inn grew into a helpless place fueled with superstitions playing against the people. The townsfolk went on with their business soon as the strangers made themselves scarce.  
“I can help you if you have any trouble here,” the Doctor said.  
“Your rooms are now prepared,” Porfirio said. “Yours is room fourteen while his is in fifteen. We have strict rules about late-night visits here.”  
“No need to worry about us,” the Doctor said.  
“I hope you have a good rest.”  
“What's going on here?” TJ said. “How come people are acting like scared kittens?”  
“Nothing of interest,” Porfirio said.  
With a stagnant plea, the innkeeper gave them a glance to begged for them to stop asking questions. His eyes looked over the woman's shoulders as he saw the audience of gamblers finishing out the game. Something about this house clamped and grimaced.  
The innkeeper tried to take another step, but the stairs threatened with another creak. In the cradle of his arm hanged a cleaning towel. His forehead broke out with a needlework of sweat.  
“Bad enough the storm's out,” Porfirio muttered.  
“Well?” the Doctor said. “Don't mind the others. I like to help if I have an inkling of what's going on.”  
“Ma'am, if you want to help, I would suggest you leave here by morning and never come back,” Porfirio said.  
“Something's got you spooked. Is it that castle on the cliff?” the Doctor said.  
Porfirio Pennington felt the wind pegging the walls outside like an assault, and he looked like a man caught in a web of horror. He stifled from saying something while he stopped in mid-sentence.  
He fished a couple of keys from his pocket as he handed them over to the Doctor's palm, gently putting them in her hold. His fingers retreated from the keys like a victim of fear.  
They were small, gold keys with a little rust on them, and they were numbered fourteen and fifteen like homecoming gifts. There grew a low silence that sprinkled with the hurling wind outside that sounded like madness.  
“You ask too many questions.” Porfirio said.  
“I don't have a lot of patience when people are trying to hide something,” the Doctor said.  
“Take it from me, miss. You've come to the dead end in New Transylvania. Nothing more.”  
“New Transylvania?”  
“That's right It's a colony.”  
“Thank you for the soup and bread.”  
She took the keys while her host shuffled down the stairs, his lumbering form sauntering like a drunk trying to stay on the stairs. Though he might be drunk with worry, concern, like a man who carried guilt in his soul.  
The Doctor kept her key while tossing the other key to TJ who caught it with a skillful hand. He moved like prowling cat lashing out.  
The Doctor turned to ask the innkeeper why there was no number thirteen in the building. He scowled as if it was a bad number. The Doctor playfully bit on her lips while the innkeeper kept walking down the stairs. The older man tried not to make so much noise on the steps, but it was a lost cause.  
His walrus mustache bristed with a booming stir. The innkeeper moved along the circling steps leading back into the cigar-etched, beer soaked dining room. They were speaking in low voices as if they tried to hide their words from the devil who might be eavesdropping on them.  
“Nice place,” TJ scowled. 

Chapter eight  
This fortress of wood met with the traditional lore of windows and hallways that echoed with sheer antiquity. Sordid walls rippled with the Gregorian details while the large in fell into a painstaking cesspool of darkest corners. Indifference seemed to be the answer everywhere.  
When the Doctor found her room, she found it to be very narrow. The wooden panels under her footsteps creaked with an extra cry. Who else would be sleeping here in this fine Pennington Inn?  
Yes, indeed, there was no number thirteen anywhere to be found on this floor or any other part of the building. The room numbers jumped from 12 to 14 in a compromise. And the extra room was meant for maintenance.  
The Doctor could see Maggie was busy scrubbing the floor with a sponge and bucket of water down the hall. She would dip the sponge, squeeze it and apply it to the wooden surface with good cleaning efforts. Her golden hair never halted from dangling, looking more than a mere parlor girl. The Doctor offered a brief smile to Maggie.  
“I haven't mentioned anything about the wood being old and dry,” the Doctor said while fixing the key into the door number fourteen.  
“I noticed,” TJ said.  
“Be careful about how you handle the candles,” the Doctor said. “This place will go up in flames.”  
“I'll try to remember that.”  
“This place is very authentic,” the Doctor continued to talk in the hall. “It feels like we stumbled into a real village stocked with fears. Except the passing knowledge of space time coordinates.”  
“Yeah, that threw me off a bit,” TJ said.  
“It doesn't make sense to me. The townsfolk are hiding something here.”  
The young girl kept pressing the sponge to the floor, her dress and blouse old-fashioned. Maggie was bliss with a youthful vigor that could baffle men. Her blue eyes met with TJ for a passing moment.  
TJ felt his emotions gouged with the wounded past with romance. He stood rigid in the hallway. The woman shrugged her shoulders as she pressed the sponge with her ample fingers, her beautiful face twisting with concentration as she worked on the floor. Her blond hair hid some of her face.  
“You seem likely to help us,” the Doctor said.  
“I'm not sure about that,” Maggie said. “This place has eyes and ears.  
“How is that?”  
“My father runs the place, and he can catch wind of anything that's going on. This used to be a happy place.”  
“You could have fooled me,” TJ said.  
Maggie continued, “There used to be late night parties with good food. Now we scrape by. It's like we don't even know each other anymore.”  
With a pushing rowdiness, like a train wreck of bad manners, Porfirio's grumbled voice carried up the spiraling stairway down. It sounded like he was fighting a bad cough as he shouted after her.  
His booming words grew a steady roar. He sounded like someone stepping out of his cave to shout at the world. Maggie looked worried like she was going to get pulled into her corner without supper. Her father was an assassin of small talk.  
TJ put his finger to his lips to suggest silence, and everyone could hear the hurricane of the loud voice down the hall. Porfirio deliberately made noise as he stomped on the stairs, looking for his daughter. The wooden steps felt lazy and worn under his intruding steps. He moved like a maelstrom of commotion. How could anyone avoid him?  
“Maggie?” Porfirio shouted. “You done with that cleaning up there? I want you down here in an instance!”  
“Coming, daddy,” Maggie said.  
“Is he always a bully like that?” TJ said.  
“He gets grumpy, but he never hits me. So I guess I can say that much about him.”  
“What a delight.”  
“Don't be telling strangers about me talking to you. It brings ill to the town. Best you be laying low for the night.”  
Now the bellow of the father ripped apart the flight of the stairs with his loud voice, and he became a distraction. Everyone knew he gripped the wooden railing with his hand because the taunting noise stirred from the wiggling bones of the stairway.  
“Don't make me come up and get you,” Porfirio said. “I mean it.”  
“Yes, daddy! I'm coming down right now!”  
“Hurry it up... don't be dilly-dallying!” the innkeeper exploded at the bottom of the stairs.  
“You worry too much, daddy!”  
Maggie dropped the sponge into the water basket, and lifted it up with hand. Despite her small stature, and legion of cuteness, she was capable of carrying the bucket around that's heavier than a bag of rocks.  
She nodded politely to the Doctor and then to TJ, making a small curtsey before getting along. Her features wore a tender youthfulness while she wore a cross around her neck. She didn't want to tempt her father into coming up here and dragging her back down to the comforts of the kitchen.  
The Doctor stopped her for a moment.  
“Do you always wear crosses?” the Doctor said.  
“It fends off bad spirits,” Maggie said.  
“Interesting.”

Chapter nine  
Flashes of lightening tore between ruptures of thunder while the window shutters down the hall clapped with a riotous shout. The shutters clattered loosely while Maggie looked at it with slack-jawed expression.  
The rampage of nature wrestled with the window shutters as they shut and open again with a steeling whiplash. The girl hurried over to lock the door with the turn of the switch, making sure it was locked. Her hair dangled over her shoulders like a lovely flower bed.  
The Doctor blocked the girl's way for a moment, making it difficult for Maggie to get through. It was like a cat and mouse game for answers, and the young girl grew anxious while trying to get to her father. The explosive reach of winds rattled the shut window.  
“I need a moment of your time” the Doctor said.  
“We both do,” TJ added.  
“That's a moment too much,” Maggie said.  
“What happened to this town that made jumpy like a feisty cat,” the Doctor said.  
“Everything was fine until that man moved into the castle a couple years ago. I think that's when the troubles began.”  
“Yes, yes, yes, I'm not interested in mere gossip,” the Doctor confessed.  
“That's when the nightmares began. With him.”  
She looked like a girl who got pulled into the dark and left there. If you ever seen a girl locked in a sad place, it was Maggie. The helpless voice in her eyes lifted to them.  
Soon the boom of thunder twisted with her father's shouts as he demanded for her to come down the stairs. Maggie wasn't going to hold back as she made a dash for it under the freakish howl of wind.  
Her footfalls made a stampede between the Doctor and TJ as she brushed passed them. She slipped in between them with ease while hurrying down the stairs without further antagonizing her father. She was like a little bird in flight going back to the safety under her father's wing.  
The Doctor turned to look through the crack between the locked windows, and she could still see the thrusting view, painted by the acrylic lashes of lightening, the standing candle that remained perched on the cliff. The slouching building looked like some giant ruling over the flagging town that stayed awake under the lost night.  
“This could be bad,” the Doctor said. 

Chapter ten  
Late at night. Much later. When the town of New Transylvania began to sleep while most candlelights went out like winks.  
Careful hands lit the candle in the room while the working flames danced with a lively tilt. The springing brightness grew until the shadows in the room grew long.  
It wasn't a bad guest room far as most inns would go. Sure the room was a little cramped and the wooden, musky scent plunged into the air with a rank reminder of old age.  
There sat a reading table, a couple of chairs and a bed pressed against a wall.  
On the north side the window clattered and rattled with a wind-swept ruse that poured between the splatter of rain that nailed the grounds like a chaotic message. The rooftops in the village of New Transylvania huddled closer together. There were no churches.  
The Doctor noticed some garlic in the room which gave an awkward scent, and she shook her head in disbelief. Her entire life, or lives, were stuck on the failsafe approach in using science to solve facts. She never liked the idea of anyone going back to the dark ages.  
Was this the dark ages? Did this place somehow get thrown back into the pitiful reliance of superstitions? She saw that Porfirio's register was computer-operated which blinked small lights. And he knew about the universe around him. What was going on here?  
So the Doctor felt the discomfort of this village stifling as if progress stopped forever. She looked around to check for the walls, looking for any clues or leads. The town's sympathy for old legends bothered her some.  
“I could go downstairs and mingle,” TJ said.  
“I wouldn't advise it,” the Doctor said. “I might suggest abiding to their rules. Most of them are probably asleep by now.”  
“You actually believe in their nonsense.”  
“They obviously do. There's a web of intrigue here especially when the young girl mentions something about nightmares. And the castle on the cliff might be the center of it all.”  
“So we wait?” TJ said.  
“The town is going to sleep now.”  
“So what?”  
“That's when darkness roams.”  
“The storm is getting louder now,” TJ said. “It is like the winds are gripping a hold of this town.”  
“Yes, it is. Keep your bow and arrow handy. I think we'll need it.”  
“It's getting late. I should get some shut eye.”  
“The stuff of nightmares. I wonder what that means?” the Doctor said. 

Chapter eleven  
Skulking, tarnished rooftops regaled against the booming storm that cracked above them like a totalitarian horror. The suffering breath of darkness seeped into the houses while the roar of animals could be heard.  
With a haste, the Doctor rushed to the window ledge as she took a look outside. Her lovely head peeped out the window while viewing the triumph of darkness outside. The split of lightening churned through the night like hissing lashes.  
Below, in the immobile town engulfed by night, there grew the infernal approach of rabid movements. The streets tore with monstrous growls that ripped through the air with a savage lust while a war of graveyard shadows threaded between the houses.  
The Doctor looked on as she could see the living night before her, midnight hair whipping around her neck in flailing beauty. She looked on outside, her neck craning. Could the night have eyes now?  
Below the window a parked horse carriage sat on the gravel-split road, and the horses grew agitated from the town's beckoning. Stretched through the map of old streets grew a tide of darkness that welcomed a sea of movements. It became a mark of steep, desperate reach of hooked fingers. There grew a pulsing current of horror in New Transylvania.  
“Something's not right,” the Doctor said. “I think we're about to have a few guests.”  
“What it is?” TJ said.  
“I think they are the nightmares bottled up in this town.”  
“We should warn the others. That Maggie girl could be in trouble.”  
“Lock the door, and do it quickly!”  
“What about the people in the inn?”  
“Do as I say!” the Doctor shouted with anger.  
Her companion hesitated as he approached the door while throwing the lock and bolt, hearing the hard click which broke the silence. Night clutched him like a wild beast while he felt the air tightened like a sickness.  
With a hellish pounding, and fierce gurgle, the door met with a barging of restless roaring that moved the night. It was a manic, frightful sound that snapped against the door with a rattle.  
TJ stepped back as his hands instinctively reached for his bow and arrows as he witnessed the new language of violence taking hold of the door. His eyes grew wide as the foul growls lifted in a maelstrom of noise.  
The Doctor signaled for her friend to come to the window where she saw the streets filled with a monster's rage. The sleepless town belched with a ruthless savagery that tore it apart.  
Pouring into the quiet side of the streets was a deadly inferno of sadistic animals prowling over the grounds like a primal stain. The endless breath of rain splashed against them while the lightening strokes flashed with a splashing brightness. It gave a moment's view of the invading beasts with hunger.  
They were werewolves. 

Part Two  
Chapter twelve  
The door snapped apart like cheap splinters while the monsters reached tore through the door with scraping, snarling, their searing forms filling the hallway outside. They were like children of the night throwing a fit, mercenaries of darkness.  
TJ jumped back from the door as the scratching littered the wooden panels, a hurricane of swipes mixed with constant growls. He grabbed an arrow from the draw string bag, holding it steady while he eyed the door like a hawk. He could see a prying form settling around the door.  
Waving, moving, the form clawed with a boastful roar that ignited the night's consuming mood. TJ could see through the broken hole the hanging cross around the wolf's neck as it stood leaning against the door. He recognized the necklace.  
It was Maggie.  
And the others came to the door like a flight of savagery, hanging around the door as they composed themselves for another attack. Their faces bathed with a lust to kill. They looked like victims of this sordid change, and the wolves that looked like Hiram and Porfirio joined the windward streak of clawing. 

Chapter thirteen  
The crashing sea of creatures ravaged the town's roads as their scowling forms swayed into the wilderness of the dark. Their frenzied outlines streamed across the roads with a monster's lashing.  
New Transylvania became a giant wound for monsters to pick at. Some of the werewolves jumped on a blue box in a side street while their befuddled faces didn't understand the words “Police Box” across the top.  
One of them leaped on the lamp where the light would be, and the offending creature raked at it with claws. Bantering, angry, the wolf tried to scratch at the surface without any success. His hellish friends joined him in madness as they surrounded the blue box that sat like a temple to be worshiped.  
So they left the blue box alone to crave the rest of the town to paper shreds. This surge of movements, a seed of destruction, thrashed through the storm's howling as they lunged like mad beasts. They gave up on the mystery of the blue box, unable to get inside, and instread they tore through the houses or buildings that made up New Transylvania.  
The Doctor continued to witness the strange campaign of monsters moved with an embracing hold. Their gaunt visages of abominable horror approached the inn with a closing hunger.  
TJ looked over her shoulder as he held his guard, seeing the lashing of beasts slipping the living heart of the town. The Doctor and her friend were greeted with another barrage of attacks at the splitting door.  
“At least the TARDIS is safe,” the Doctor said.  
“What about us?” TJ pointed out.  
“This is going to be rough, but I think I might have a way out of here.”  
“We're trapped. We should reach the rooftops.”  
“Whatever for?”  
“So we can reach the TARDIS.”  
“That's not a bad idea, but too dangerous. And there are too many of those... werewolves on that side of town now. I have a different thought.”  
Her hair dangled like strings of beauty while the rain washed the skies with scattered cold. The abyss fed with another lightening stroke the town with a seeping caress in momentary brightness.  
The Doctor pointed to the stagecoach beneath them with the two horses still attached to it. Perhaps someone rode into town tonight for a stay, or it could be property belonging to Porfirio Pennington's inn. The horses were not yet on the wolves' menu.  
“That'll be tricky,” TJ said.  
“There's still a clean shot to the castle,” the Doctor said.  
“You're hell-bent on going there?”  
“The route is open to the castle. If we try to get to the TARDIS, we'll be overwhelmed by our new friends.”  
“You're enjoying this.”  
“The answers must be in that castle. Something triggered these people to become monsters. Perhaps the nightmares serve as an catalyst which transformed these people into werewolves...”  
“How come we're not affected?”  
“Maybe the TARDIS' influence keeps us protected from it. Psychic shielding?”  
“Ah, never mind the explanations!”

Chapter fourteen  
The Doctor nodded as she stepped through the window as she put her foot on the ledge, and dropped down to the horse carriage below.  
Her womanly body hooked on the upper portion of the wagon as she struggled to take the reins of the wagon, steering it. She balanced herself while the scattered portions of the streets reared its ugly head with werewolves.  
TJ looked back to see Maggie was tearing through the door, knocking the thin sheet of wood while her arm wailed inside. Her father was there sharing the same madness, a savage caricature of what he once was. Their hair-covered, scowling faces ripped through the door.  
“I'm sorry,” TJ said.  
He lifted the bow and plucked the string with a fierce shot that hit the door. The arrow exploded into a confetti of brightness, showering the attacking animals with a scary brightness. The wolves startled back with a fearful recoil which bought TJ enough time.  
It was a harmless arrow, but it was one of the many tricks that he kept in the quiver on his back. TJ turned around as he jumped through the window as he leaped on the top like an acrobat. He was like a warrior taking to arms.  
It as dark outside with the ripping and clawing that clashed with the rain, and TJ could see the woman snapping the reins to get the horse's wagon moving away from New Transylvania. 

Chapter fifteen  
Several werewolves clambered around the wagon like desperate figures in the night. Their showing teeth glistened with the gnawing sharpness while the hunger fueled their animal faces. These wolfish figures fought to reach the wagon with a cannibalistic tirade.  
With the Doctor being in the driver's seat, she threw a clenched fist into the attacking werewolf's face. The offending foe let out a crying howl while his paws soothed the pain in his face, dimming his savage lust. His kindred still didn't rest until they will reach their human victims.  
The Doctor snapped the reins again as the horse carriage bolted like a finessing bundle riding through the street, hurling with a streak of movement. The roads were suffocating with more attacks.  
TJ remained sure-footed on the top, his outlined form steady. The Doctor saw another struggling shape crawling near her with deadly intent, clambering to the side. She whipped her clenched right hand into the attacker's face, sending him rolling to the ditch.  
He was still clambering with the burned flesh and the wolf fell into a rage that matched with the storm's menace. More exchanges of lightening stitches flushed the harrowing scene as the horse wagon ripped through the rushing rain.  
“What did you do to him?” TJ shouted from the wagon top.  
The Doctor lifted her hand to show what she got, and handed it to him by reaching out her arm. TJ gripped the small piece of metal while his eyes narrowed.  
He could see it just fine as the next lightening blazed across the cracked heavens. It felt like stone, only something more smooth and heavy. It didn't take a detective to figure out what it was.  
“Silver?” TJ said.  
“Yes.”  
“I thought you don't believe in superstitions.”  
“I don't. Thankfully, they do. These creatures do have an allergy to silver,” the Doctor said.  
“We'll be lucky if we make to the castle alive!”  
“Don't ever doubt me!”  
Now the horse wagon roared down the countryside with a rough ride under the thrashing hail which snatched at the tree-twisted grounds with a watery hell. Where the clouds collided together like giant ripples, the skies boomed with more thunder across the castle.  
The forked bursts of lightening stamped into the broken stages of the skies above while the burden of the storm poured into the night like a sulking cauldron. 

Chapter sixteen  
TJ could see an extra passenger as it climbed up the back of the wagon, clawed hands digging into the wooden space. The monster webbed the side like a spider on a wall.  
The creature moved its talons further over the edges, crawling with a snarling threat. What of these monsters which had no end to them? They kept coming like a running pack. With earnest skill, TJ pulled the bow and arrow while testing his feet against the grinding, smashing rocking of the wagon beneath him.  
He pulled the arrow that sank into the werewolf's shoulder, knocking him off like a fallen comrade. TJ reached for another arrow after he gave the silver back to the Doctor. The castle on the cliff stuck out like a nocturnal coffin.  
“They're all people from the town!” TJ shouted.  
“I know,” the Doctor said.  
“That was the innkeeper and his daughter trying to break into your hotel room.”  
“You'll have to stop looking at them as villagers and see them as savage beasts.”  
“I don't know if I can do that.”  
“There's one more thing. Don't let them scratch or bite you if the superstitions still hold. Don't let them get near you,” the Doctor warned.  
“Why?”  
“Nasty things happen. Now do you mind?”  
TJ whipped around on the stagecoach's top as he readied himself for the breaching war that prevailed on the lonely country road leading up to the castle.  
He saw another werewolf clinging to the side, hanging on like a shadow. Its fur was wet from the stinging rain while the smell of savagery grew in the air. The werewolf's seething, violent outburst collected with dire eyes flashing. Her razor teeth danced under the rain.  
He saw the cross around its neck.  
TJ could see it was his dear Maggie from the inn who had turned into wolf form, and now was reaching for him with hunger. There would be no getting to her through reason.  
His fingers nabbed the arrow against the string as its niche tightened into a hold and he pulled back with a strongman's strength. His Asian features whipped with the radiant rain.  
He held the arrow that threatened to strike the woman who crawled over the wagon's edge with hunger on her lips. Her cross dangled like a final memory of humanity on her.  
He could easily knock her off the side, his fingers holding the string steady with the ease of a sharpshooter. And yet he felt the rage conflicting in his heart. He was just starting to like the girl from the inn, and he felt bad enough to give him a king-sized headache. His thoughts of Yuki still stuck in his mind, and his guilt was still not ironed out from his last adventure. He was a stupid romantic.  
“Shoot it now!” the Doctor shouted with a cosmic anger. “Don't think of it as your beloved housemaid!”  
“I hate the idea of hurting her,” TJ said.  
“She won't feel a thing in her current state!”  
TJ released the arrow which impaled into her shoulder just below the neck, and he could hear her make a high-pitched squeal that sounded like an animal being stepped on. Seeing the familiar blouse ripple in the wind made it all the more painful.  
She felt the full force of the hit as she rolled away into the road like tossed baggage. In the splitting darkness, the feral outline got up from the road as she pulled the arrow from the her flesh. She made the unladylike display of clutching at her wound while howling at the darkness like a shifting beast stifled with nature's doom. The wretched lightening parched across the skies with another strike as the storm clattered with a booming shout.  
The countryside became infested with the wolves, and their animals actions covered the hills as they ran between the woods towards the road. They, too, moved like thunder. The stagecoach made good progress.  
The abyss of the dark stretched between here and the solitary castle stood against the breaking storm like a brave efidence, and the stillness of the night rippled around it with broken haste.  
The swell of creaking rain lodged against the hills while the heartbroken land became a corruption. This place turned into monster grounds. 

Chapter seventeen  
The thorned woods held together like a scene of hate whole the darting slaps of creatures moved and raked the grounds as they twisted around the rooted trees. Those bedeviled shapes latticed the ground like a plague. Ahead the castle titled like a stronghold over New Transylvania while the storm ate the skies with another terrible blight.  
Passages of the dark wrapped around the intruding figures who ran in the midnight rain. Now this single road grew closer to the castle that defied the strong winds that swept against the brick and mortar.  
“Hi-yah!” the Doctor shouted.  
She snapped the reins again while the horses tore through the bungled road, rushing passed the knots of dead grass. The outstretched chasm of land reached with fatigue as the darkness greeted with charcoal wisdom.  
The Doctor rode the carriage further up the trailing road, faster on the whirlwind of mountain roads that perched around the mountain in steep circles.  
The road was a dangerous and long climb, looking over the shifting grounds fueled with petrified forests of fear. The wheels churned ahead without rolling over, and the naked eye could see the great heights mocking them from below. The Doctor made sure not to make a wrong move.  
That carved road grew more treacherous, rumbled with gouges and potholes, and the horse wagon climbed higher and higher, wheels consigning with more speed, while the deep of the mountain welcomed them with a laughing darkness.  
Sordid chips of darkness, the tremble of split grooves in the road, furthered the endurance of horror. Filling the countryside with the relentless burden of werewolves seeking their next victims. And yet this was the only road leading to the lumbering castle that sat above like a fat king on his throne.  
The travelers reached the castle while the stalwart building rested against its haunches like a hurricane of cement. This was a beast of architecture that was proof in hard work done with the sweat of a man's brow. Now the wide mouth of the drawbridge was closed to any prospective guests.  
The wagon shuffled slightly on the outside castle grounds, stopped short in its trail to safety. The only thing that was in the way between the travelers and the castle was the giant door made to cast out any skirmishes of nightmare that laid waste to the countryside.  
“Nobody home?” TJ said.  
“I'm sure there is, but no one is answering,” the Doctor said.  
She stood up on the floor boards against the regaling rain, her protruding figure defiant against the giant of the castle before her. Everything seemed to shrink back from her features complete with crimson lips and a hardened stare.  
The horse earned a well-deserved break as they whinnied, their nervous forms itched to bolt. The Doctor's hands reined them in with the leashes while the night moved behind her like an oncoming threat.  
She glanced over her shoulder to see the storm's belly twisting into a feared dance, swinging with wild winds, while something rushed up the winding road in the mountains. The dark hallows of their forms moved with a sure quickness. The Doctor turned to the castle again that slouched under the ribbons of lightening. The giant moat wrinkled around the castle.  
“We need your help!” the Doctor shouted.  
She waved her hands while her hanging coat collapsed around her thin figure, hoping to signal whomever was in the high building. Yet nothing seemed to return the favor for the initial call for aid. The voice of the thunder grew closer with a hellish chord.  
She grew frustrated while her words met with silence of the castle. There stood no guards in the forlorn building, and the Doctor's patience was cut short while the castle receded further into darkness.  
The Doctor decided to try again.  
“There is an army of these... things,” the Doctor started. “We need shelter! I appreciate if you raise the drawbridge!”  
Nothing happened.  
“Please?” TJ added.  
“I don't think that's going to work,” the Doctor said.  
“What about the sonic screwdriver?”  
“No. It's just rocks and chains at the gates. No promise of electronics here.”  
The castle's heights could not be reached while the rigors of rain slapped against the flattened stone that made up for its fortress in triumph. Who could live in such a place like this? Perhaps ghosts lived here.  
Moreover, why was the person so afraid to open the doors to the rest of the world? The Doctor turned again to see the venturing forms moving like a cloud of persistent hunger. 

Chapter eighteen  
There grew a calm in the castle that wept with a sadness, hoisting with a powerful grasp of stone. What sounded like a breath of life circling in the castle could be the wind. The windows seemed to glance back like a mouth of darkness.  
TJ decided that he could shoot the arrow over the castle edges and help them. Perhaps he could scale the walls, climb over it and retract the Bascule bridge from the other side. The wolves were getting closer.  
The Doctor shouted, “You're foolish to leave out those who need your help! I find your uncharitable acts to be a blatant disgrace! Open the drawbridge now!”  
It was TJ who could see some movement in the church, and he swore on his own mother's grave that there was someone inside. Night hanged with an anguished tongue of evil, and the swell of the storm turned into a bloated predator that crawled over the landscape. Maybe it was the ire blast of the lightening that made TJ think there was someone inside.  
He decided not to waste anymore time as he could see the unyielding kindred of werewolves moving in a tirade's rage, their faces plucked with savage lust.  
TJ could swear he saw some of the familiar people like Maggie or Porfirio in that crowd. His hands tightened on the bowstring, aiming higher.  
Now the thunder roared with random chorus as he judged the height, winds and the sway of the air for his well-honed shot. His fingers pulled back with the arrow attached to a climbing rope.  
The Doctor shouted, once more with a thousand angers, “I am a scientist! Open. The. Door. Now!”  
The loud clatter of the Bascule bridge crackled over the moat with a noisy chain as the somber hammers of the door rattled free at the need of a guest's whims. Now the clash of rocking mechanisms, protesting with creaks, made its own thunder as the giant wooden ledge lowered itself like a yawning mouth.  
Now the gap of the Bascule bridge dropped with a mighty haste, cranking aside with the metal grind to allow for safe passage.  
Now the giant doorway led to the deep of the castle offering a view of the courtyard. The religion of stones wrapped around in the tombs of age. The ride into the courtyard would be best.  
The giant tongue of the door settled with a loud clash as the Doctor dropped down into cabin seats joined by her friend TJ. She led the horses straight into the ruling castle while seeing the interior of the castle gave a grand view, the clatter of walls welcomed them. The promise of the storm still roared.  
“I could've gotten us in,” TJ muttered to the Doctor.  
“I'm sure you would have. There's just one thing. I didn't want to leave the horses to the mercy of those things outside.”  
“Good call,” TJ said.  
“Save your talents for later,” the Doctor whispered. “We may have need of them.”  
“Next time.... tell them you're a scientist right away. It'll get us in faster.”  
“I'll remember that.”  
“You don't know what you're expecting here?”  
“Not at all. Though it's curious that the door opened at my admission to being a scientist.  
“That's got to be a good thing.”  
“I hope so.”

Chapter nineteen  
The vestiges of the castle, and the sprawling walls, which looked like a derelict of society. And yet it had the advantage of keeping out unwanted crowds from these stalwart towers. This giant building was proof of lasting, formidable structure standing tall against even the most brutal storms.  
Now the rain sloshed against the courtyard where a statue of a woman holding a vase greeted them. Now the Bascule bridge lifted with a battered noise which shut out the world once more.  
When the Doctor finished guiding the horses, leading them into a parked spot, she put the reins away. The horses helped themselves to eating hay that was piled against the far wall, giving off a smell that reminded one of farms or old homes.  
The Doctor and her friend could see the horses battle hunger as they dipped their mouths into the hay, a welcome sight. With a passing interest, the Doctor looked around to see the strong will in design for the castle, and how much work went into creating this giant castle.  
There were a spiraling, long staircase that led downward into the courtyard, and the feast of steps intertwined with cut stone and wood. It was very traditional in appearance.  
Something grisly could be felt about the walls like splotches of age spreading through the cracks of years barking in the stone. It was a kind of place that could keep a poet busy with words for a very long time.  
At the very top of the stairs, like some imposing figure, there stood a man who shrugged off the downpour of rain. His gaunt form, and thin legs, climbed down the sprawling steps.  
His hands hanged at his sides like a perfect gentleman in a perfect suit while his hair was a handsome brash of salt and pepper. His footsteps steered clear of the edges as he moved downward.  
There was a cut of intellect hiding in his eyes while his features suggested a skin that was pale as moonlight. He reached the lower steps as he cheered the others on with his greeting.  
“Hello. And welcome,” the man said. “My name is Dr. Frankenstein.”

Chapter twenty  
The wilderness of the rain smothered the below chambers while the skies rattled with the fierce snatches of lightening that ripped the pages of night. The towering castle forged a massive defense against the countryside infested with savage intruders.  
The Doctor turned around to see the Bascule bridge making the final clamor, and the door sounded like a harbinger of death. Now the hard cries of the door tightened and gripped with a closing knot before the castle was secured. The Doctor could see an older woman turning the crank as she summoned all the strength she could muster.  
And yet, in the static blight of lightening, she could see the woman was probably a servant in the castle which was not unusual. Though she was a little unnerved to see the older woman giving a nod to her. The Doctor ready to get off her stead while wiping the threads of hair from her eyes.  
“Please don't be wary,” Frankenstein said. “I'm glad you came by.”  
“Frankenstein?” the Doctor muttered.  
“My name is Udon Frankenstein. I haven't received some guests for some time.”  
The Doctor stepped off the horse carriage as her feet hooked onto the ground below.  
She grew aware of the friendly charity of the man's greeting, but remained cautious. The force of the storm bellowed above like a seething witch making noise.  
“Perhaps we should go inside right away,” Udon said. “You're soaking.”  
“Thank you,” the Doctor said.  
“I agree,” TJ said. “It's been more than disagreeable out here.”  
“I can't tell you how glad to hear from another who share my thoughts on science,” Udon said.  
“I'm looking forward to it,” the Doctor replied.

Chapter twenty-one  
Inside the castle, like an open book, the hallways poured into a weathered, dignified place where cobwebs of age still nestled in corners. It was a fairy tale place where chandeliers hanged like fortresses of glitter while shadows relaxed under the high ceilings. The building swayed with flouting grace indulged with riches.  
Tried, restless, TJ hoped to get a better room than the one in the New Transylvania village. His sordid features twisted with fatigue as he glanced around the castle to see the roaming walls meeting with the high-handed foyers above. He tried to compose himself.  
The servant, the older woman, strolled though the side door to retrieve his coat that was stringing wet from the rain's downbeat. Sheer walls rushed upwards to great heights while the main balcony, made of fine wood, accosted the sights with spiraling stairways.  
There sat the lofty set of a knight's swords in a criss-cross patters, and there was also a laser gun fixed in another location for passing viewing like you were in a museum. A laser gun? That's odd.  
The boom of the storm grew muted here, but the clashing of rain could still be heard. Explosive shouts from the gods purged the skies with a great power outside like a constant battle.  
TJ began to swipe the rain from his coat while the Doctor shrugged the wet stir of hair from her face. She removed her coat before haning it to the servant.  
With a calm demeanor, the Doctor pulled her hair back into a chastened knot to keep it out of her face. Her eyes sought the attention of the tall, rivaling figure of the host.  
“Is there any other baggage you like me to take, ma'am?” the servant said.  
“No thank you,” TJ said.  
“You've been more than helpful,” the Doctor said.  
“That'll be all, Adeline,” Frankenstein said.  
The woman servant nodded to the others while carrying off their coats to a dry place, most likely the lobby hanging room. She moved through the castle despite the great abyss of the castle being assaulted by the storm.  
TJ looked around to see the further halls stretch forever and the languish decorations of the main room seemed calm as a church. He was almost afraid to imagine what these large rooms were like at night.  
“Sweet Adeline,” Udon said. “She doesn't say very much, but she's been a very good caretaker for this place. She's been with me a long time. She's very much like a...”  
“Companion?” the Doctor said.  
“That's a very old fashion word, but it describes Adeline to the tee.”  
“It is a fine place you have here.”  
“What brings you into these dangerous parts?” Udon said.  
“Just passing through,” the Doctor said.  
“Does that include crossing paths with savages of the dark?”  
“I was hoping to speak to you about them.”  
“Oh, yes. They remain a constant problem. I'm sure you're famished and could do with some food.”  
“We've already eaten at the Pennington Inn,” the Doctor said. “But I could do with some wine.”  
“Consider it done.”  
“I'll pass on it if you don't mind,” TJ said. “It's been a long night.”  
“I can imagine,” Udon said. “Adeline will take you to your room when she comes back.”  
“All right.”  
“You can always join us in the dining room if you change your mind,” Udon said.  
“Thanks.”  
The Doctor made a sideline to her friend as she brushed her languishing, white shirt that was sported a ruffled top hanging like a fashion wisp, eternally pretty. It was good to rock the romantic trend.  
“Keep an eye on things, okay?” the Doctor said.  
“I'll do that,” TJ said.  
Udon Frankenstein waved his hand to cut off TJ for a moment, his theatrics seemed to be in the center of attention. He was like a stage actor walking on the stage. There sat a fierce gift of emotions being idle in his features, ready to burst. His outward intensity gleamed in his eyes.  
His features may be of a somewhat younger man in his forties, but his stare held an old man's age inside him, a towering beacon of knowledge. He lifted the bow from the Chinese archer's hands to inspect it.  
“Make sure you don't go out into the halls the early hours,” Udon said.  
“Why? Superstitions?” TJ said.  
“No candles in the hall. It'll be very hard to see.”  
“I usually don't touch other people's property.”  
“It's a bow, isn't it?” Udon said. “I haven't seen one of these for a while.”  
“I'm an archer, sir.”  
“That's fascinating. You can see I'm a collector of old namesakes. Weapons of bygone days. The products of fire and metal.”  
“I noticed.”  
“Your bow is very quaint.”  
The host gave the bow back to the archer and the rumble of thunder continued to dispel the silence. The glaring candles made a veil of brightness over the stately floors while the combined sheer fixtures of the castle offered astonishing views. This place spread like a great manuscript. You could turn a page to find something else to read.  
The archer nodded to the others before excusing himself, taking to the stairs with the bow in hand. His small stature followed the steep steps as he followed the woman servant Adeline to find his new room. 

Chapter twenty-two  
The dining room was indeed another story. It was filled with languished décor and soothing crafts that gave it a momentous pallor of architectural beauty. It was fit enough for a king.  
The walls were covered with paintings, one being a landscape scene of the countryside with a couple moons in the background while the other grew more elusive with a waterfall view blessed with the artist's mundane skills. The rest of the room bellowed with wooden dining table that stretched from one end to the other.  
The room conceded to the man's authority. Noting the bottles of wine on the table, ready for consumption, the Doctor took her place at the table while Udon Frankenstein sat opposite her.  
His reaching fingers gripped the wine bottle as he proceeded to uncork it. Some of the wine labels were Cappuchino Murder, the Unholy Arrow and the Cinnamon Petal.  
This place grew suited to her. The Doctor could feel the crackling warmth of the fire hearth that was wrapped with a brickwork while her thoughts drifted to other things. The booming fire made her remember the burning forest in Japan. Putting her thoughts to rest, the Doctor turned to offer a small smile as she began to unravel a napkin.  
The fabric of her dress rustled while she sat with one leg crossed over the other. The ravishing torrents of her hair framed her neck with a singular beauty while the swell of her breasts hid under the thin gown that hanged like midnight's exception.  
The curves of her lovely hips hitched with a perfect balance like a dancer in waiting. Her fingers tangled around the wine glass for a sip of the Cinnamon Petal.  
“I couldn't help noticing your name,” the Doctor said.  
“Ah, don't confuse me with the infamous Dr. Victor Frankenstein. My great-great-great-grandfather.”  
“Does that mean you share his pursuit for science?”  
“No, no, I follow a different path.”  
“Interesting,” the Doctor said.  
“It's nothing I like to dwell on. The past is what it is, but I focus on the future. And the goodness of the future,” Udon said.  
“When I was outside getting soaked, as you put it, by the storm, you didn't open the gates despite my shouts. When I mention something about science, it triggered a response.”  
“I was hoping that you would be someone working with Dr. Van Helsing.”  
“I'm not.”  
“I admit that I've longed to have a good talk with someone who has knowledge of science. The people around here tend to have lesser interests than I.”  
“Which brings me back to the concern of the Frankenstein legends.”  
“My ancestor was a very sick man. I do not want to share his fame. My name is Udon Frankenstein. Beyond that, I have nothing in common with Victor. I prefer not to pursue his life's work.”  
“I'm happy to hear that,” the Doctor said. “What is this place? I found some interesting juxtapositions in the town of New Transylvania. There is antiquity and yet there is advanced technology.”  
“This is New Transyvania, New Transylvania. It's a colony world. Oh, this is an agricultural society. We have farms and super science everywhere, and yet we don't cater to pollution like the old days of earth. This is a colony still sleeping in its infancy.”  
“Interesting.”  
“We rely more on gardening and trading rather than using the vehicles which pollute. Even the horses are fed with an organic compound to make our world less polluted.”  
“And our friends outside?” the Doctor said.  
“Well, this planet goes by a nickname that might be more suitable. And that one seems to stay with us. Some people called it the Horror Planet.”  
“Fascinating. Despite your progress, you still cling to the superstitious ways. Humans can be so petty this way.”  
“Humans?”  
Above them the heavy chandelier, holding the spray of candles, shook while a booming roar shook the skies outside, and the menace of thunder rattled the walls with the crude noise.  
Such a foul noise breaking through the halls forcing the Doctor to pivot in her seat! It sounded like a gunshot punching through the air in a gut-wrenching twitch. Was something attacking?  
It was loud enough to shake the castle. 

Part Three  
Chapter twenty-three  
“Don't worry,” Udon said as he looked up. “That happens when a storm hits. This castle is well over a hundred years old.”  
“It does have its quirks,” the Doctor said.  
“Used to belong to royalty, the first pioneers of town. They built the castle starting with Marek Oppon and began a trading business that reached from this town to a few others. They profited greatly from it. The last grandson of Marek Oppon passed away a few years ago with no surviving relative. The castle remained empty for some time. The folks can be superstitious.”  
“Where you go,” the Doctor said. “Fear becomes a part of the living world. It is inevitable.”  
“Yes, it is. Isn't it?”  
“Does your presence bother the townsfolk?” the Doctor asked.  
The dining room became swamped with fine discussion that rocked like a banter, ideas being swapped by interrogating minds. So much that the expensive utensils, the lush plates did not matter anymore.  
Fascinating! A colony world called New Transylvania! The Doctor still referred to her wine glass of Cinnamon Petal with small sips.  
It was a good red wine which soothed her thirst, and the breathless walls glanced back her. Her neck craned while she looked around before her eyes fell on Udon again. She couldn't fight the urge to drink the wine after nibbliing on life's expectations in her small talk.  
She felt an anxiety working in her like a loose thread being rattled. Call it insinuation. Call it a feminine trait. The Doctor couldn't help but distrust the current situation she was in while she offered a soft smile as she listened to Udon's calm voice that was like an orchestra of notes. The bemused sight of her beauty, a lordly view, held Udon's interest. That was enough.  
Udon poured a little more Cinnamon Petal for himself, and eyed the woman who had great stamina for such liquor. She seemed to him like a storm of emotions being tied down while wrapped in the white clothes and a long dress that seeped like summoning shadows.  
She remained distant from his advances, though she was an attractive woman. And yet he knew he had been alone for too long. Udon didn't mind the long talk they were having.  
He poured a little more wine for his inquisitive guest while the red wine sloshed against the sides. She made a signal with her hand to stop about mid-way with the wine glass, topping it. What would lure for tonight? Small kisses or small talk? The woman didn't seem interested.  
“You're trying to get me drunk, aren't you?” the Doctor said. “It's not going to work.”  
“Can't blame me for trying,” Udon said.  
“You'll find I'll rise above such things. I'm more interested in your dealings with the current science.”  
“Of course.”  
“And I have another interest. Do you have any of those yogurt covered pretzels?” the Doctor said.  
“I don't.”  
“That's too bad. That's my favorite treat as I seem to have an urge for them from time to time.”  
“Hmm. Well, I took on a different path in science,” Udon said after tasting the wine.  
“Does it include a study of dreams?” the Doctor said.  
“You're very perceptive, Doctor,” Udon replied. “Yes, it does.”  
“Would you mind telling me what's happening here?”  
“I find that sleep can open the doors to many things. It's like a step inward towards our souls. Dreams can make us better, improve us. And dreams can help our better understand ourselves.”  
“That's true.”  
“Dreams are like taking your thoughts and putting them under a microscope.”  
“Ah yes, dreams are passages to our tiny, hidden secrets,” the Doctor added.  
“I wanted to tap the positive nature of dreams, and find a way to help people conquer any deliberating illnesses.”  
“That's an intriguing notion.”  
“I was able to help one person overcome his childhood tragedy when he became crippled. Ol' Jimbo, that's his name. I was able to use his dreams to help him conquer his disability.”  
“And?” the Doctor chirped.  
She took another sip from the Cinnamon Petal as she remained wedged between high chairs latticed with wicker patterns.  
“The results of further experiments have been negative. It's all been a sham. I'm stuck in mid-progress,” Udon said. “There are only outbursts of madness instead.”  
“The stuff of nightmares?” the Doctor said.  
“Excuse me?”  
“I was thinking out loud.”  
“Sometimes I think the night becomes a living thing.”  
The Doctor lifted her glass to sip it one more without settling it down, and she watched as Udon did the same like dueling knights at a table exchanging words instead of sword clashes.  
The clarity of dreams had always been an interesting subject. For as long as any species lingered, dreams were always the constant companion. The presence of Mr. Sandman was no laughing matter.  
“Indeed?” the Doctor said. “Is there a chance that I can offer a second opinion?”  
“I don't think so,” Udon said.  
“Why not?”  
“I'm suddenly afraid of the things I do not want to talk about.”  
The Doctor set the glass down for good, keeping it on the covering cloth on the wooden surface. The thrusting rattle of the storm crackled at the midnight hour.  
Her eyes remained elusive while the string of the candles danced like merciless demons. The shadows played tricks on the walls while the lightening flashed like bright forks. And yet she wanted to dig deeper into this conversation, her conviction not sealed. She remained the diplomat while at the table.  
Udon made the effort of pouring more wine into both glasses, his fingers holding the bottle that weighed with the celebration of red. The Doctor noticed this as she watched him repeat the process like a giddy teenager on a first date.  
The Doctor grabbed the dinner knife from the folded cloth and pointed it threateningly at Udon Frankenstein's neck from across the table. She held the knife handle with perfect conviction.  
“I'm growing tired of this. You're still trying to get me drunk. You should be ashamed,” the Doctor said.  
“Ah, is the Cinnamon Petal wine not to your liking?” Udon said.  
“Alcohol works much slower in my body due to the physiology. What intentions did you have in mind?”  
“Nothing. Nothing at all.”  
“You disappoint me. Rather, you're trying to get me drunk enough to avoid asking you the right questions. About what exactly?”  
“You're looking right through me.”  
The Doctor leaned over with the knife and made a small, swirling move with it. This woman looked like an avenger of universe inviting trouble.  
“Let's talk about something else instead. What's been bothering you?” the Doctor said. “There's a distinct air of menace in this place which has something to do with the outside. The werewolves. Am I right?”

Chapter twenty-four  
Being placed in the rich setting as opposed to the cramped, knotty inn room took some getting used to. The spacious halls clambered for attention while the hallways provided a scenic route.  
After walking the stairways, and beating the laughing gesture of thunder or the enemy of shadows, the small company of two reached the second floor without any incident. The guest room offered a persuasive fireplace that provided a gentle warmth. The window shutters wobbled with an idle chatter tapping against the walls.  
Adeline stepped into the guest room as he moved over to the windows to close them. The wind shuffled like a thousand twitches while TJ followed her into the room, keeping his bow to his side.  
His eyes caught sight of the outside while the housemaid was busy closing the shutters, pushing the darkness out. And the ferocious beasts that seemed to hide themselves in the midst of the countryside.  
“Wait,” TJ said.  
He stepped towards the windows as he could see beneath the moving darkness that rippled like a lively, seething presence. There were the coil of hills casting more shadows and the forest hanged like hidden things I the abyss below. Yet the blackness stirred like a whirling stream. A lofty, breezing shout of moving shadows passing between the trees and hills while the storm raged on.  
“What's wrong?” Adeline said.  
“I thought you don't talk much.”  
“I prefer to keep to myself...”  
“The ground is moving,” TJ said.  
“It does that every night since...”  
The night slashed with lightening while the brightness danced across the countryside. And TJ could see the fleeting numbers of werewolves now growing, more and more, an endless army of unshackled beasts. They waged their anger and howled as the lightening flashes stroked their features. Their faces turned upwards as they surrounded the castle with a madness.  
“Do you see that?” TJ said.  
“Nothing. It's nothing,” Adeline said. “They have been attacking the castle on a nightly basis. They won't get in. We're safe.”  
“Are you sure about that?”  
“Yes.”  
“I hope you're right.”  
“I'll close the 2windows now, sir. The intruders shouldn't bother you any down there.”

Chapter twenty-five  
The housemaid hooked the window shutters together with a small chain, and bolt, and fiddled with it until it was locked. She seemed to confident that the castle remained impenetrable. Neither a striking comet or a raging horde of werewolves would get into this place.  
Adeline carried much faith for herself, and she too carried a small cross she carried in her pocket. If she didn't spend her time skulking around in the old halls of the castle, she might have come across as a normal person. She moved through the building like a fleeting shadow so light on her feet.  
“I notice someone else carries the cross too just like you,” TJ said.  
“Some of us do.”  
“How long have you been helping Dr. Frankenstein?” TJ said.  
“I've known him since he was a child, and his father was an administrator for the town of Qoiuoa in the northern parts. I was with Udon when we moved here in New Transylvania a few years ago.”  
“So you're like a mother to him?”  
“I wouldn't go that far, but I do tend to fuss around the house. He's educated and always been a bright man to stayed out of poverty. But he needs someone to look after him or he'll be lost.”  
“I'm glad to hear it.”  
“I'm sure you have heard of the Frankenstein legends,” Adeline said.  
“I haven't,” TJ admitted.  
Adeline cleared her throat, “I assure you that he's better off than his ancestors. He's trying to help mankind, not hinder it.”  
“So you stayed on with him?”  
“There's good in Udon. He's trying to help those with handicaps. I used to have anxiety attacks, but he's helped me with that. So he's still sincere in his work.”  
“I believe you.”  
Adeline said, “What about your mistress? She's a doctor. Has she come to help us here?”  
“I'm not sure. She's brilliant in many things, but can be daft.”  
The older woman was very tall with slender slopes for shoulders, and her face looked like an arch for age. She looked slightly pale like a parched doll, and her eyes began to search around the room like she was trying to pick at the shadows. A frothing sign of fear dripped into her eyes with a petrified stare, her throat tightening with a small gasp.  
“You're going to tell me that the castle is haunted too?” TJ asked.  
“I wouldn't venture down the stairs or in the castle at night. The castle walls can be very hungry. Sometimes...”  
“What?”  
“Sometimes I hear footsteps.”  
Adeline excused herself from the room as she sailed across like a noble woman who knew how to carry herself with the utmost dignity. She reminded TJ of his own mother who looked very lovely under the Sakura trees and the sun's wisdom. He felt very nostalgic for a moment.  
After the house servant availed herself outside, there grew a creak in the door that closed shut. Now the hallow of the room became a relentless thing while the flickering fire sloshed against the far walls like mangled ignitions and the room grew sensitive to the pressures of the storm.

Chapter twenty-six  
Reaching for the door, TJ found it was locked. His face twisted into anger as his mood soured for the moment. His hand rattled the door which did not yield to him. The clatter echoed in the room while the stifling choke of darkness snickered at him.  
He didn't like it here all the sudden. This thick door would be too solid for him to get through, and he checked the keyhole to find that it would be too difficult for him to parry with the end of an arrow. He was caught like a stuck rat in this room. TJ heard the voice on the other side of the door.  
“I'm doing this for your own good,” Adeline said.  
“Let me out,” TJ said.  
“I'll be back by morning when everything is better.”  
“You're leaving me here?”  
“There's a music and video recorder behind the bookcase if you wish to be entertained.”  
“Actually I just want to punch you.”  
TJ couldn't find any way of getting through the door, and so he gave up on the idea. That wood was several inches thick and made from the hardest substance. So there must be another way.  
The window.  
With a snarling weight of strength, TJ used force to break the lock on the window shutters. It made a brief sound as he heard the lock fall down on the floor with a thud. He could see the hurling wind and the slamming lightening taking to the skies like electric hunters in the night.  
The hungry faces of the werewolves could be seen in the sloshing storm, and it looked like a sea of horror. The thrusting winds hurled and clashed like stray cats fighting in the fiendish night.  
TJ took his bow and the quiver of arrows with him. No use leaving them here bottled up in the room if he could carry them along. He checked once more for the keyhole in the door, and looked outside to see the other side of the hall with the set of doors. And the flock of candles giving a bright stir. The gargoyles of shadows playing around like latecomers to a party.  
However, the vision of the windows persuaded him to tackle the problem of being stuck in this room. He could stay here to enjoy a little bit of Amadeus, Britney Spears and Pink Floyd, or he could try his hand at a few acrobats outside.  
It would have to be a way out of the window.  
Though he wasn't happy about the heights. 

Chapter twenty-seven  
Outside, in the frenzy of the storm, the gregarious grounds shuffled with the twisting mayhem and rude intrusions of savage forms. Now plunged wind and thunder while the merits of savage men split the dirt beneath them with hooked paws. Their claws edged around the rocks, and trees, wafting between the dead of night like moths attracted to the light. And that light, for them, was the damned castle in front of them.  
The werewolves moved.  
They shifted towards the castle with their upturned faces glowering at the storm while their high wails slitted through the gutted air like wretched calls. The wind poured over the trees which flickered with shaking leaves and the grounds woke every time the thunder rang in the skies like a death-bell. They sought to find a way into the castle.  
There must be a way.  
And yet the fortress remained a fixture of strength that mocked their dallying forms. None of them were able to get into the stalwart building that lifted like a mighty stone giant.  
It was impenetrable.  
And yet there was always the alpha male in the group, and the sticking blister of growling erupted from the wolf form that was Porfirio Pennington, his snapping face glistened like a thrusting sickness, his searing eyes moved with fire. Now he gave the expression of hunger. His snarls sounded like a crushed balloon whistling with last note.  
Oh yes, he was an Alpha male when he was human, but Porfirio had to go out of his way to be top of the line in wolf form. His crushing, fiendish form wrestled with the others.  
And yet the one who was Maggie swaggered and stepped into the battlegrounds, her face locked towards the castle as well. Their faces served as a horde of maddening expressions.  
Yes, there must be a way to get inside.  
Porfirio pointed to the castle in a grumbled tone.  
Their forms dwelt in the carnal savagery that languished over the hills and grounds like devil-spawned outlines. Hands hanged with sharp talons while their teeth grumbled in the legion of growls.  
More of them joined Porfirio in his rage to find a way into the castle. Their pouring outlines filled the abyss of shadows while the storm clustered above them in a fiery display of roaring noise that crippled the skies. Fingers of lightening tore at the black canvas of night like repeated flashes of arcane power.  
Porfirio slapped against one of the other werewolves in his rise of prominence. Now the other werewolf, smaller and faster, made good on his promise to fight Porfirio for supremacy. Their embittered growls intertwined while their hands slashed at the air like fierce clawing. The grounds grew disheveled due to the grinding talons of their feet.  
The younger werewolf leaped at Porfirio to draw first blood, seeing his ragged body covered in raw, wet fur, his mouth growling while the spittle of rain wailed over their now fighting forms.  
One was stronger, bigger while the other was faster, younger. And yet the arena belonged to them like some primal fury tearing at each other with animal fits. The voice of the savages spat from their mouths.  
Almost a mosh pit of death. 

Chapter twenty-eight  
Soon the bustling audience of werewolves cheered on this act of barbarians while the violent twists of hate ripped at one another in their private war. Both werewolves lunged at each other like flights of fury.  
Maggie leaned into the audience while she growled with choking support as her father pressed on his attacks. The aggression, the hissing, the heavy-laden hate filled the dark like bursts of savage lust. Maggie watched her father hold his own against his opponent.  
There was Hiram on the other side of the crowd dancing and mugging like crazy, his growls sounded more like a jackal, a high-pitched wail flogged the rain-fueled air.  
With a sudden start, the younger one tried clawing at Porfirio's left side leaving a few marks. However, leaning away from the attacks, Porfirio noticed an opening before going in for the final kill.  
His hands ripped into his foe's throat with a startling slashing. Porfirio added strength to his attack, and his foe made a weeping sound before colliding to the ground.  
The boundless others jumped up and down in a frantic pace. They grew into an uproar at the banquet of violence.  
Maggie threw an approval as she leaped like an animal in hunger.  
The werewolves danced like primitive monsters on the crevice of the grounds, making noise.  
Porfirio singled for the others as he lifted his hand to the castle, fingers outstretched into a web of fur and nails. His features trailed with hunger urges. He proved his worth on the battlegrounds here. He chest-bumped with his furry hands as he howled at the gods.  
Somehow he remembered something about the history of the castle from the old days, and how the castle was a series of tunnels. How did he remember such things? What made him think of such things?  
Was it his savage mind connected to the castle that raged around the spiraling front? His thoughts harkened back to the blood-rage battle that begged him to move forward. The tunnels beneath the castle.  
He knew he was right.  
There would be a way.  
He turned to the castle which he met with rage.  
Porfirio would find a way inside. 

Chapter twenty-nine  
He gripped the ledge with his feet while his hands fastened against the slouched, exterior castle walls like a cat tightening its hold. Though he wasn't keen on the idea of comparing himself to a dumb cat.  
Seeing the below grounds sloshed with thunder and electric stew of lightening showered over the animal rage of werewolves who tore at the castle. They looked like a vigor of monster stampede, scratching and clawing, their talons raking at the stone.  
His gentle feet moseyed along the ledge while the crushing blow of the storm rained on him with a slapping wetness. He moved with sweeping grace, keeping himself to the walls. His feet tested the next few inches, grounding himself to the easy faults of the castle ledge as he steadied himself to the next window which was not far now.  
Would he slip? What would happen? Get bitten or clawed? Become one of them? Even China had their werewolf legends too. It fightened him when his thoughts turned to old history.  
His concern was for the Doctor as his lock-happy hostess may have other ideas for the noble guest in the house. The Chinese archer pushed the window with his fingers, seeing that he was free at last as he swung himself around the shutter, keeping himself on the ledge.  
He almost slipped once during the escaping skirmish, but his hands gripped the next-door window, pulling himself in while the blowing storm ravaged and ripped at him like a fury.  
Now TJ scrolled north through the room before ducking into the hallway. TJ made the effort to unlock his own door while the candles dallied like golden tokens.  
He realized that he was leaving a wet trail behind him due to the storm soaking his clothes, but he didn't care anymore. No matter. They would find out sooner or later. 

Chapter thirty  
He could see the hallway yawned like a mouth ahead of him while he checked to make sure no one was present. He could see the mystery of the halls, and the folly of going through the castle could leave one ragged with fatigue. It was a foothold of many avenues and distractions.  
TJ hid himself as he saw Adeline making final checks on the hall doors before doing down further like a bidding ghost gliding over the floors.  
He ducked behind a pillar where he hid from Adeline's passing glance, and turned to see the doddering old woman still putzing around with the doors. He waited for a few extra moments while she stepped away to the end of the hall.  
TJ watched from around the stone pillar as his face clutched with a taunting shuffle, seeing the womanly form shuffling down the spiraling stairs that sank deeper into the lore of the building. Perhaps she was will finish the rest of her chores. This must have been the oldest building in New Transylvania.  
Nothing could be better than an empty hallway.  
“That's better,” TJ muttered.  
He tried to find another way around the extravagant route, perhaps a side hall. TJ followed the cascade of shadows the leached off the walls, and the slight breeze of air waged from an unearthly dampness.  
He decided to take the stairs for some reason, a peering abyss beckoning to him below. His thoughts tallied, his footsteps followed up the stone-riddled steps.  
He sauntered his way upstairs, knowing that he should probably go to the Doctor first. His promise to explore the castle and report to her invaded his mind. Now going deeper, shuffling, he found his way to the bowels of the castle as he stepped into a chill that was colder than a crater in the arctic. Something fueled in the room just ahead of him.  
Into the attic.  
TJ found a sordid room that was flattened the place, and it felt more like a morgue to him.  
“What the hell?” TJ said.  
He stepped into the echoes of the room, following the trail of the floor into what looked like a laboratory. It became some bizarre peepshow as he stepped further into the iciness of the place. It felt like the shadows littered the floor with crowded grins.  
Plunging into his nostrils was the foul stench of that clenched his senses with fear. There sat an old chair with some blood on it, and the restless machines surrounding it like some macabre proof of madness slipping into a subconscious. Instruments of hell.  
A profane knowledge of science settled in these experiments that gave off a dark ire scraping against his mind like a skinning knife.  
Though the crowning jewel of madness was not the blood-stained chair or the slinking machines that gave off some power or the cascading stairs of stone that led into this room, but the giant slab which laid a dead man under a white sheet.  
Turning toward the center of the room, a-washed with production in askew science, TJ could see the dead man's arm slipped from the slab in a dangling motion. Was he dead? Was it just a reflex?  
What did they call it? Rigor mortis? The temperatures were cold enough in this storage unit next to the laboratory space. What was it doing there? Was it some macabre reminder? TJ tested his courage by getting near the silver-gleamed slab, his hand reached the hanging arm on the table, fingers itching to find answers. It was cold.  
With a final act, TJ rolled the white sheet off the dead man whose features stifled with an emptiness in the eyes. And the blood congealed on the wound that slipped with dried, caked flakes of death.  
TJ thought the dead man looked like a monster. 

Chapter thirty-one  
The castle looked like a rising tomb resting on its haunches of the motte. This friendless, solitary building held its own against the constant storm which circled with a map of lightening and rakes of thunder.  
It seemed uneasy to approach it, but the radiance of the storm garbled like a language of destruction as the storm collided with the storm. And yet, undeterred, Porfirio continued his struggle to move towards the giant stone ward that sneered at him.  
It made him angry.  
Porfirio moved along the dug-out ditches along the mottle, finding the soil sloshing wet in many areas. His movements were wild, awful, his hanging talons shuffled through the air as he sniffed out a possible opening. His irate form raged against the castle built with arrogance.  
There grew no available entrance hereabouts as the werewolf moved along the edges. The counter slopes of dirt felt ragged to his feet as he made a climb, hoping to get higher, but the flat surface of the walls scaled in sheer heights. It was impossible to get through.  
Porfirio swam down into the moat as he fell like a bounder, his rolling form crashed to the bottom. His lavish, savage growls could be heard as he struggled on his feet. He found something near the skirting cleft of dirt, his senses leading him.  
He found himself between water roots and thankless chasms, but his eyes sought a small break in along the wall's structure. His flattened hand settled on the ground while he moved around like a dog, his jutting, commanding form pressing closer to the broken wound that looked like a crack in the cement.  
Had Porfirio found a way into the castle at long last through the moat? He nodded.  
Porfirio began to clear away the weeds and roots in the water, digging deeper into the subterranean answer, as he moved closer to the castle domain.  
This brute form of Porfirio turned to see the steeling rain made good on its promise to fill the skies with more noise. He could feel the cutting rain in the water like troubled currents.  
He turned to dig more through the tunnel like a man who discovered a secret. Should be tell the others? Or should be take the glory for himself? His eyes glistened with the sharp-steel of primal rage.  
Yes. Yes. Air! The cellar!  
This was the way into the castle, and he was the one who found the route. Porfirio made a triumphant howl that cut through the very heart of the night, and the ragged darkness bled around him with a slowness of hunger.  
His call alerted the others, and they would come like an army of monsters. And he would be the first to lead them into the next stage of the night. His face clenched with the savage lust to move forward.  
His inquiring form clawed through the crevice in the castle like a wandering beast. The wild burst of calling would bring the others to him. And they would follow him into the dark before finding light again in the castle.  
Maggie, Hiram, and the other villagers with him. That chain of savagery brought them together. And now his calls would bring them once more on the very horizon of battle.  
Moving further down into the darkness.  
Porfirio was not afraid for the first time.  
He thought of the uncooked meat that would whet his appetite. He remembered something about being an owner of an inn, but little else. Those thoughts of humanity seemed worlds away.  
His wolfish figure tore through the wreath of darkness while he pressed further into the crevice, forcing him to move slower now.  
His hunger raged. The moat was behind him now.  
The primal lust for lust lifted in his voice. He made another howling. The others would be with him in a heartbeat. It was a perfect invite. His constant howling lured the night. 

Chapter thirty-two  
The Doctor settled the knife on the table when she thought she didn't need to use it anymore. Her fingers released the utensil while noticing that it was also made of silver.  
Udon watched her as he reclined in his chair, his thoughts wrapping around in him like a guilt-ridden spree. He lifted his hand to scratch his head.  
“Don't you feel safer holding the knife?” Udon said.  
“I don't like weapons,” the Doctor said. “Besides I was trying to make a point.”  
“Regardless, you're safer if you are prepared. Science can be the most dangerous thing of all.”  
“Science can go in circles,” the Doctor admitted. “You can make progress if you're willing to take chances.”  
“Do you take risks?” Udon said.  
“Always.”  
“Perhaps that is why you're finding yourself in a spot of trouble wherever you go,” Udon countered.  
“We're talking about you.”  
“I made the risk once of trying to solve the mysteries of the universe around me. I tried to connect to the dreams of humans, and yet it was like a doorway that I kept pushing and pushing. And I found only death.”  
“In that, you are doing your ancestor's work by tampering with science,” the Doctor said.  
“I tried an experiment in dreams, but it drove my willing experiment insane. I was hoping to tap into the positive side of dreams, but something else happened. Perhaps I found a dark place I shouldn't have. And the victim became something else in that chair I strapped him into.”  
“What happened?”  
“I tried to tap into the dreams with this machine, but I could not save the victim who was too far gone into his madness. I won't forget his name. Antanas Luik. It was like I tapped into a dark side of savagery. He growled, spat and tore at me. He nearly got out of the restraints and I had to do something about it. So I took a loaded rifle and put a bullet into him. Thus killing him in for mercy. I think it was due to the silver bullet I used.”  
“The madness of werewolves,” the Doctor said.  
“Yes. It is spiraling out of control as you can see now.”  
“Have you ever studied lycanthropy?”  
Frankenstein admitted, “I've stopped myself with the experiments after shooting poor Antanas. If I was smart, I should turn myself in to the law. However, they're infected by this savage nature too.”  
Udon Frankenstein got up from the dining table as he swirled his fingers over the table like he was feeling the smoothness of the wood. Something flirted with his thoughts while a stifling darkness fueled his eyes like a gurgling frenzy. He moved around the table like some panther as his head craned. His movements grew taunt, fierce, like a man who did not sleep for ages. He was filled with inspiration.  
He stopped while he turned around the corner of the table with an elusive stroll, and he mulled over the problems that faced him. The Doctor lifted her face to him while she still sat in the chair. 

Chapter thirty-three  
Her powerful eyes settled on him. She looked like a dark woman, gripping the empty wine glass. There grew an authority in her stare.  
She set the glass upside down while making some defiant act, a statement. She leaned back in her chair while the great storm coughed and gouged with a poetic lament, cursing the skies.  
“Are you making an opinion of me?” Udon said.  
“I'm reminded of the Nazi medical experiment dampened with icy waters at the Dachau concentration camp. People like Dr. Carl Cluberg and SS doctor Sigmund Rascher took the experiments to a newer level. Some might say supernatural. Dachau became a nightmare.”  
“How dare you compare me to those thugs?” Udon said.  
“I don't think it's your fault that this happened. It's not in your nature. The werewolf problem still persists.”  
Udon Frankenstein explained, “They're actually called the Corrupted. It's a name I've given them. Not werewolves. They have some elements of the werewolf, but they're violated in the mind.”  
“Well?”  
“I disbanded my experiments for months now. I don't want anything to do with them. It makes me sick to think of what I've done.”  
The Doctor said. “Your machine seems to trigger something in the mind. And in the villagers. Your machine dug into their dreams and revived a savage instinct.”  
“I was trying to help them.”  
“By doing so, you made things worse!” the Doctor snapped. Her voice could break the silence like the walls of destruction.  
“I was scared. I still regret what happened.”  
“You need to show me where the experiment is,” the Doctor said.  
“It represents my greatest failure!” Udon shot back. “It's off limits.”  
“I'll tear down this place to find it.”  
“I won't let you!”  
The dining room felt into a dismal silence as the the Doctor gave a slight disapproval I her face, and yet did everything in her power not to let her anger get the better of her. She seemed swayed by the dangers, almost thriving on them.  
She leaned over with a final note, holding her thoughts. She could see Udon was struggling with himself like a man going to a confessional box to speak about his worst sins.  
“Would you like to retire to your room now?” Udon said. “We could postpone this discussion until morning.”  
“Why? I'm not tired,” the Doctor confessed.  
Someone stepped into the room with a sweeping presence, and her older features grew very still with a grimness that hanged on her. She leaned over to begin shuffling with the wines and unused plates. Adeline stifled a yawn as she continued her chores.  
“Ah, the prodigal house servant arrives,” Udon said.  
“If you'll excuse me, sir, I'll have to clean the dining room,” Adeline said.  
“Very well,” Udon said before turning to the Doctor: “We can bring our discussion to the next room.”  
“There is a call for you, sir, on the intercom,” Adeline said.  
“Thank you,” Udon said to his servant. “Is everything... done for tonight?”  
“Yes, sir, it is.”  
As if her movements sliipped into chore-mode, never seeming to stop, she remained a very active woman in her sixties. Her features grew with age and a hooked nose.  
Her sulking cheeks grew book-ended with gray hair. She held herself for a moment before noticing one of the wine glasses was left upside down. Adeline shook her head as she grabbed the glass and placing it into a small tub of dirty dishes. 

Chapter thirty-four  
Thousand of books flowered into a resting crown of knowledge that remained on the shelves of old. Despite computers and hard drives that would space, the library consisted of volumes from a bygone age.  
When the Doctor stepped into the library room, she felt like walking into a world of books. The endless array of books, from history to literature, from science to the arts, the vault grew with the excessive spaces that could be reached by hand or by ladder.  
Perhaps it was a tomb of books as well?  
Her eyes held a deepest respect as she strolled into the room with miles of envy. Most people would simply say, “Did you read all the books?” For the Doctor, however, she could not help with the idea of spending the rest of her life right here reading the wide stockyard of books, and more.  
Udon helped himself to the small computer screen which revealed itself when he slide a bookcase over, and the modern world peered through with flicks and switches. Now the screen hummed with a surge that poured from the electronic heavens. The Doctor stood by him as she watched the flicker of process growing to life. Her eyes noticed a few books written in 2363 on a nearby shelf.  
The Doctor mulled over the expired conversation they had while she glanced over the many books that offered a lifetime of reading. Or perhaps several lifetimes.  
The Doctor plucked a book from the shelf, seeing the old binding offering a name: “Frankenstein” by an anonymous source. It could very well be the original copy.  
Author Mary Shelley didn't see her name in print until 1823 when France published a second edition for the audiences. Interesting how Franksenstien was born out of a friendly bet between a few writers.  
“Are other colonies affected by the Corrupted problem?” the Doctor said.  
“I don't believe so,” Frankenstein said. “I haven't heard any bad news from other towns.”  
“Well, we did learn one thing,” the Doctor said.  
“Yes?” Udon said.  
“The werewolf problem isn't epidemic. Or, rather, the Corrupted. It's just a local situation that we're in right now. It hasn't reached any other areas. So it corroborates with your story of the dream machine you're working on.”  
“That's true. Which begs the question: How long will it be before the machine could have stronger influence?”  
“Locking and putting it away isn't going to solve the problem,” the Doctor said.  
Her fingers still head the old book in the cradle of her palms, seeing how she was skimming through it as she glanced over the words. The musky air sprang from the old pages that crinkled like leaves.  
The book she held gave a different insight which deemed a little nostalgic. Oh yes, the Doctor read this one a long time ago. It was one of her favorites. She shifted her hands over the dog-eared pages while Udon Frankenstein sat in the cushioned chair in the middle of the room. His face lit by the hanging candles that provided a irksome brightness. With a half-turn, the Doctor caught him looking at her like some overgrown teenage boy.  
“The book by Mary Shelley,” the Doctor said. “First edition”  
“That book was in my family for generations. I always kept it in good shape by keeping the right temperatures and dampness in the library.”  
“I can tell from the cold air that seeps into the room,” the Doctor said. “You keep the book for nostalgia's sake?”  
“A constant reminder of not becoming what I don't want to be,” Udon said.  
“Still fighting shadows from the past?” the Doctor said.  
“I don't want to fall into the same trap that the original Frankenstein found himself in.”  
“I'm sure you wouldn't,” the Doctor said while still holding the book. “For that to happen, you need to learn and trust others in working with you. There's a need for sharing ideas.”  
“I'm not so sure,” Udon said.  
“Are you so vain, and stifled with pride, that you're not willing to admit your mistakes to others? Are you going to let your vanity get in the way?”  
“That's not fair.”  
“And you're willing to let your selfish needs cloud your judgment?” the Doctor said.  
“You don't understand,” Udon said. “This darkness gets closer every night. It cracks in the winds. It breaks the silence. It's like a voice breathing in the air. I'm afraid of it.”  
The doors whipped open as if the winds of night pushed them apart with ghostly hands, and the aching crack of horror split the darkness. The candles rippled with life as someone stepped through the library doors, availing himself to the library.  
He was out of breath. His face drained with color as he pressed the high doors shut again. The dagger of lightening cut across his features as sweat broke out on his forehead. 

Part Four  
Chapter thirty-five  
TJ remained in front of the doors, his eyes carried a weight of horror. He moved like the wind as he put a dent into the current discussion. His hands held the bow near his side. The thunder broke again.  
Udon Frankenstein looked a little surprise at seeing him, his face dragged with the small expression as he tried to compose himself. It might be a little too late for that.  
“Surprised to see me, huh?” TJ said.  
“I don't know what you mean,” Udon said.  
“You tried to lock me in my room tonight. Or your servant did.”  
“I did what I thought was right.”  
“You seem to do that a lot.”  
Though Udon tried to hide his initial shock, he composed himself in his chair. The Doctor placed the book back on the shelf where she took it, and moved across the library floor with the windswept beauty of her dress and clothes. She welcomed the diversion.  
Her long hair drew over her shoulders while the threads remained away from her features. Her eyes narrowed to concern while she wondered what could have brought her friend TJ back to this conversation. Outside the long howls filled the storm-blasted air like a gripping tension causing everyone to look towards the window.  
“Don't trust him,” TJ said about Udon. “And don't trust this castle either.”  
“I already have my reservations,” the Doctor said.  
“You should be in your rooms at this hour,” Udon said.  
“What? Like a locked pet? I don't think so,” TJ said.  
“What is the meaning of this?” the Doctor said.  
“I did it for your own protection,” Udon snared as he turned to window again. “There are so many... unwanted elements here.”  
“There is something else,” TJ added. “I found something in the attic. It looks like a dead body attached to a machine.”  
The Doctor made a half-turn, slightly angered by the mention of the attic, and stepped into the circle of the room like an opera singer ready to take center stage.  
The dreadful spell of thunder, in a fearful accent, blundered with rude manners while the skies sounded like an accidental train was crashing through it.  
Her face twisted into a maelstrom of emotions that bordered on anger, infused with rage, and the woman was chancing on diplomacy to find her allies and enemies.  
What could he be hiding now? 

Chapter thirty-six  
She looked like someone who could bowl anyone over should they get in the way, and her simmering anger, like a teapot growing hotter with a whistle, could knock out the world with a puff of smoke.  
The Doctor could strangle the cosmos with her outbursts like a goddess ripping apart a spectacle. She stepped between the others with a sway that suggested she didn't give up easy, her dress collecting around her feet like a dark feast.  
Udon Frankenstein didn't look intimidated, but there was an opposing force. And that was the Doctor who could easily challenge him. He knew this. The Doctor skirted around him like a leopard looking for a weakness.  
Their ideas, and notions, collided while he knew that her manic mood swings, and civic pretense, would be to great for him.  
Udon ignored the overbearing candles that shook as the earthquake thunder became a devil's lore outside. The landscape of New Transylvania became accustomed with a bewitching menace that not even he understood.  
“So you were playing God again?” the Doctor said.  
“You have the wrong idea,” Udon said.  
“Adeline speaks very highly of you, sir,” TJ said. “It's as if she worships you.”  
“She and I have been friends for a long time. Nothing more.”  
“You couldn't sooth your ego,” the Doctor raged. “Oh, this library is built just like your massive ego, isn't it? Overblown and exaggerated.”  
“That's uncalled for,” Udon said.  
“But your practices on the dead isn't?”  
“I haven't been in the attic for months. Not since I put a bullet in Antanas Luik. I can still see his eyes in my dreams staring with hate, guilt. I couldn't go back there again. I did try to reach his mind even when he was dead. And yet nothing.”  
“That's good it didn't work,” the Doctor said. “Every cycle of life has its beginning, middle and end. You should know this by now.”  
“So the dead man in the attic is...” TJ started.  
“Antanas Luik. Yes. In the flesh, so to speak.”  
“You're trying to make science in your name again, Udon,” the Doctor said.  
“Don't be lecturing me, Doctor. I know very well the morals of the game. It's unfortunate that you came here at the darkest hour.”  
“Then let me help you,” the Doctor continued. “Don't push any more secrets into the graves.”  
The storm storm carried over with an unearthly roar as the lashings of rain slapped against the castle's fortified walls. Darkness moved across the windows like a leper's disease while the flogging of tearing rain mugged the entire place with intertwined vestiges of haunt. The violent breeding of noise form the storm sounded like a beast.  
It was a teeming, awful thing that plucked at their ears. They gathered together in a frightened knot while the horrible demeanor of the savage call grew sharp like a razor's tooth.  
The howling filled the rooms like a nightmare. 

Chapter thirty-seven  
There leaped a pounding wail that filled the castle walls as the blood-curdling sound pressed against the age-old structure of the walls. Somewhere down the halls hammered and stirred trapped fear.  
There, too, was a howling that rippled with savage spill. Someone shouted for help from down the far east hallway which pierced with panic. It sounded like it came from the kitchen area.  
It was Adeline.  
The Doctor and the others turned to the door as she narrowed her eyes. So did Udon as his head swiveled with instinct. TJ gripped his bow and arrow with an archer's precision, turning his footsteps towards the hall.  
Rushing into action, like a man made with decision, Udon took to the hallway section where the firearms hanged in the niche. He shifted past the criss-cross of swords before laying his hands on the ray-gun.  
His fingers gripped the harsh metal as the glaring spectacle switched with electronic awe as he turned on the gun. The barrel of the device hummed with collective power.  
“I hope you're not planning to kill,” the Doctor said. “These werewolves are still the villagers.”  
“I haven't forgotten,” Udon said.  
“I still protest,” the Doctor said as she walked towards the shout, her fleeting figure filled with bravado.  
“What are you going to do?” Udon said. “Throw forks and knives at them?”  
“They are made of silver. Could be an idea.”  
“It's a stun gun with only a couple of charges left in it.”  
TJ grabbed one of the hanging swords off the niche on the wall, his fingers holding it with professional ease. He knew that he would run out of the arrows in the quiver, so he needed some back-up. He's still adept with the sword despite his skill as a bowman.  
Seeing the kitchen door was oddly left ajar, like a splitting darkness pushed it slowly apart, the others led by the Doctor scissor-cut across the hallway to find looping darkness menaced with a primal urge. A monster stirred from the shadows.  
The Doctor could see Adeline backing towards the sink area, now dirty with dishes, and her features sank with fright that took hold of her. She lifted her hands to her mouth to stifle her shouts. She held a knife swooped from the sink to defend herself.  
Against what?  
The scrambling beast flitted before her with snarling hands, restless arms that looked like tree twigs, talons sharper than any knife in this kitchen. Such a renegade form covered with long hair, and the gray hairs suggested an older beast, stocky, shifting with animal instinct. 

Chapter thirty-eight  
With a half-turn, pawing at them, the Corrupted snapped his teeth with a coughing fury, his gnawing features pressing into a heartfelt rage. Barking howls grew louder like he was calling someone. The Doctor remained at the doorway like an authoritative figure.  
“The castle has been breached, sir!” Adeline shouted to Udon. “The northwest section.”  
“My worst fears have been confirmed,” Udon said. “He must have found a way through inside.”  
“Did you know anything about this?'  
“No, I didn't. This is a very old castle with many secrets. I still haven't discovered all I need to know about it.”  
“Werewolves are very adaptable. And you put us all at risk,” the Doctor said.  
The creature made a jump that cleared the kitchen table, and he looked like one of those Olympics athletes. His legs crouched, covered with tufts of thick hair, and his scowling attack blocked Adeline from moving.  
His savage form turned to the others as the Doctor recognized the cross around his neck just like his daughter wore. It dangled with a praying answer while its cold teeth met the kitchen air with a snarl.  
“Porfirio?” the Doctor said to the werewolf.  
“You can't talk to a thing like that,” Udon said. “It's too far gone in mind.”  
“It's still one of the people from the village. Porfirio. I know it is.”  
“You mean the owner from the Pennington Inn?” TJ asked.  
“Yes,” the Doctor said. “I have to get through to him. There may be a chance I can persuade him and them to go back.”  
“It won't work,” Udon said in a doubtful voice.  
“Porfirio? Do you remember what you were before all this? Before the nightmares? Don't let this savagery take hold of you,” the Doctor said to the werewolf. I have no wish to hurt you, but you must listen to me. For the sake of your daughter. Your daughter? Do you remember Maggie?”  
However, the rising form of the creature threw a snarling fit as it struck at the table with a loud noise. As the savage horror swept across the floor with the intention to bite or claw, this hell-hound looked to disembowel its victims with a primal glee.  
Udon pulled the trigger of the gun as he pushed passed the Doctor, knocking the werewolf back with an electrical burst. The stun gun only seemed to confuse the beast as its pain-fogged eyes glittered towards him with a hatred.  
So Udon Frankenstein lifted the gun again to point at the guttural sneering and toothy snare of the wolf. He shot once again the staggered creature a second time with more success. It fell to the ground like it was pressed down by some weight, and the Corrupted clambered on the floor to sleep like a baby.  
“It's been a while since I've used a gun like this,” Udon said. “I wonder if the batteries have been drained.”  
“Save the analysis for later,” the Doctor said. “We may need to bring Porfirio to the attic.”  
“I told you that I'm not going near that place,” Udon said. “That is the heart of my nightmares.”  
“Then what do you expect to do? Let the world turn savage?”  
“How bad it is?” Udon said to Adeline.  
“See for yourself, sir. I don't think there's any two ways about it.”  
“Damn.”  
“I'll help you clear the castle out,” TJ said.  
“The scaffolding near the castle, Adeline added.  
The small crew of people sought the outside view as they stepped out onto the balcony attached to the kitchen space. They were pegged by the scourge of the storm while the relentless beating of the rain tore and ravaged the castle from above. The approaching clouds lumbered with the full luminescence of lightening. 

Chapter thirty-nine  
Below, near the bottom of the castle walls, the smoldering blackness of movement rippled apart the ground as the threat huddled like slouching, murdering fiends. The clutch of lightening revealed the invading beasts who clambered through the breached courtyard of the castle.  
Feeding through the dark was the choking, angry forms of the werewolves climbing inside, twisting, turning, their sodden forms slipping sideways into the hallways with a hunger menace.  
“Must be one of the tunnnels,” Udon said.  
“They're be here in no time if we don't move,” the Doctor said. “Help me with Porfirio. We need to find a way to the attic without running into these things.”  
“I know a way,” Frankenstein confessed.  
“Good.”  
Outside one of the werewolves, who took on the semblance of Hiram, being the younger wolf, rocketed out of the sea of monsters as he attacked the horses trapped in their stalls. Hiram grappled with one of the horses as he unleashed a bloodlust, ripping, gutting.  
The horses fought back valiantly, whinnying loudly, but the werewolf man Hiram let loose a howling as his talons opened their wounds under the noises. He looked like a hurricane of horror cutting through the stalls where the horses met their fate.  
Hiram jumped and leaped like a wild man as he plunged his red-soaked hands into the horse as the night clouded the violence from those who watched above. The has-been gambler Hiram reached a newfound hunger as his face twisted in a distorted montage of grimaces.  
“I'm sorry about that,” Udon said. “I'll get you more horses if you need transport later on.”  
“Those were good horses,” the Doctor said in a low voice.  
“This is an outbreak.”  
With a gibbering sound, Hiram sounded like a caged animal released to do the bidding of his vast appetite. His made the run on the grounds like a foul creature.  
Udon leaned against the ledge while he held the useless gun in the cradle of his hands, and he looked at the Frankenstein castle as some lost cause now. Everything he worked for, and struggled with good intentions, was flattened by posing threats that wedged themselves into the castle walls.  
With stealing eyes, Udon watched the thrashing parade of moving forms as the werewolves covered every part of the countryside like a savage plethora. It was an apocalypse of horror. 

Chapter forty  
“There's too many of them,” TJ said.  
“I don't know,” Udon said. “They've never done this before.”  
“Don't lose your nerves now,” the Doctor said. “We may still need you.”  
“Yes, yes. It is always darkest before it gets brighter.”  
“We'll need to make another strategy,” the Doctor said.  
“Make a hasty retreat?” TJ said.  
“Something like that.”  
The spill of the storm, and the rage of the rain, did not stop from making a wild downpour. Hell seemed to rip apart the skies while the sickness of savagery grew with a carnage. The endless shapes kept moving into the castle that turned into a snarling cesspool.  
The small group of people, including Adeline, hastened back into the castle hallways as they could hear the mood swings of the storm rattling the windows. You could hear the clashing and snarling rage from beneath the floors, rising upwards like a fanatical lust, incessant lashings breaking through the silence. The basement became a roar of snarling, beastly presence that soaked the castle with ill-famed werewolves.  
Udon locked the kitchen door behind him, though he wasn't sure why. Maybe he thought it would slow them down if they reached the top floor. His fingers checked the lock while his eyes glanced back at the Doctor .  
“This isn't good,” the Doctor said.  
“You win, Doctor,” Udon said. “The attic it is. We have no choice.”

Chapter forty-one  
The small crew moved through the hallway before reaching the expansive nest of halls which spider-webbed through the castle. They took a route which brought them closer to the library.  
Even the power of knowledge, through the books, were not going to help them now in their desperate escape.  
The maze of corridors became very real, and the windows coughed with flickers of lightening as the innards of the hall fell once more into a blinding darkness. The castle ripped with a vast helplessness while the darkness swallowed whole the outstretched halls. Some candles still cast a glow in the halls, but the long drudge of shadows fell into greater despair.  
The walls moved.  
The Doctor stopped in her tracks while the others did the same, taking into account the surrounding shadows. The rest of the Doctor's friends carried Porfirio's body, bringing him along like he was extra baggage.  
Now it was up to TJ and Udon to carry the sleeping werewolf Porfirio as they struggled forward. The Doctor took the lead in front of them.  
With a skulking movement, the Doctor lifted her finger to her lips to suggest silence. One of the windows flipped open to let loose a tirade of blasting wind. She stared ahead into the hallway ahead of her.  
It was an infestation. The werewolves offered a hellish greeting as their frenzied, stark shapes slunk around the corners, courting the walls with their ravaged appetites.  
The Doctor pulled out the sonic screwdriver from her pocket as she pressed her fingers to the switch. And yet nothing happened. Her face narrowed with confusion as only a dead whirl chirped from the device. It coughed with a sputter.  
“What a time not to work,” the Doctor said as she banged the back of her wrist against it.  
She glared down to see the device had been ripped out from some claw-marks, and remembered the attacks made on her when she was driving the horse carriage to the castle earlier.  
Now her sonic device was broken courtesy of a random Corrupted's attack. The Doctor shook her head in anger after seeing it hummed with little life. Not very nice.  
“We're completely cut off,” TJ said. “We'll never reach the top of the castle.”  
“No, the library,” Udon said. “We can go there.”  
“It's a dead end,” the Doctor said.  
“There's a secret passage that can take us to the attic. The castle is full of these hidden routes.”  
The Doctor hoisted the sonic device as she stepped over to clutch one of the beautiful, radiant curtains that covered the windows, and she pulled it down with a fierceness. She brought the wide vista of curtains onto the approaching werewolves, throwing them in a tangle.  
Without wasting another moment, the Doctor legged it to the library followed by the others. Udon, TJ and Adeline ran in tow, rushing through the surrounding hallways. The cluster of werewolves riddled the hallway with savage haste. 

Chapter forty-two  
Udon stepped into the library room as TJ joined him with carrying Porfirio’s body. Behind them the corridor was engulfed by the bantering figures, the rowdy, mixed crowd of primal impulses.  
The Doctor joined the others while catching her breath. The damp, sweaty burrowing of their hair-stroked bodies clambered in the hall with more howling that broke the moon.  
TJ felt the cloud of clawed hands reaching for him with a quickness. The slithering forms crowded him at the doors, pulling him back into the mouth of hunger. His first thoughts was to save the Doctor.  
His hand shoved the Doctor ahead of him, and she fell forward into a trampling fall. The wake of growls and the mercy of wolves captured the archer in their fury. He was being dragged into the dark depths of the halls.  
“I'll buy you some time, Doctor!” TJ shouted.  
“No!” the Doctor shouted.  
“I believe in you!”  
And the Doctor heard the noises of growling intruders pouring into a migration around the archer. The thrusting of arms and the glitter of teeth roared above him as he fought valiantly against them, shoving his foot into the baying wolf that looked like Maggie. His heroic form fought the others as he lifted his sword in sweeping circles. 

Chapter forty-three  
Udon stepped to the doors as he put a lead pipe from one of the machines through the door handles, locking it. He turned the bolt as he pressed his shoulder against the wooden panels.  
“It's too late for him,” Udon said. “I'm sorry.”  
“No, you're not,” the Doctor said. “If you weren't so power hungry for your experiments, none of this would be happening.”  
“It was an accident.”  
“How many accidents before you realize the folly of your ways?” the Doctor said.  
“Science can't make progress unless we jump a few hurdles,” Udon said. “I thought you were the one you told me this.”  
“You sought pride over anything else for your accomplishments.”  
“This wouldn't be the time to argue,” Udon said. “Those library doors won't hold them for long.”  
“Where's Adeline?”  
“I don't know,” Udon said. “She was here a minute ago.”  
Behind them the clashing rumbled against the library doors like a grotesque assault, enriched by the rampage of constant howls, and the ripping and clawing defiled the wooden panels as it began to crumble under their tearing hands.  
The Doctor could do nothing for her friend at the moment, but the seething anger poured into her now. She hated it when things got out of her control, and the situation wrapped around her like slivers of hopelessness.  
The Doctor lost her friend to the wolves.  
The endless array of wolves continued their attacks outside, and the scientists took to the wall that was already opened. Adeline must have taken a step ahead of them, helping herself to the secret passages of tore through the castle like dark veins. The Doctor's noble figure hastened, followed Udon into the chambers of darkness.  
It looked like Udon was having a little trouble carrying Porfirio over his shoulder, carrying his weight with a locked arm. So the Doctor helped him as she slunk beside the collapsed wolf form of Porfirio, lifting his arm over her shoulder for support.  
Udon traded the gun for the torch that sat inside the dawdling tunnel of darkness. His hand reached for the torch as he lit it with a match. Now the long tunnel stretched before them into a muted blackness while the wake of twisting turns waited for them like a ghoulish thing.

Chapter forty-four  
The attic space was everything to be expected: crude, damp, clustered with notes and the smell of aged paper. A feast of machines, broken or neglected, populated the darkness that turned into a stirring cloud.  
Beneath this rooftop was where it all began in the name of science, and the progress of madness that made complete due to a single man's determined goals. This place was the proof where the man's hands wrought the devil's work in these cobbled spaces.  
Such cumbersome machines sat like ruins in the mayhem darkness where long-winded chores were made, and the entire laboratory looked like something from an old horror story. The rabid, teething metal collected around the tables while heaps of test tubes sat in display. This sloth of dark knowledge seeped into the room like a pothole of nightmares.  
The Doctor stepped into the attic space while Udon Frankenstein followed right at her heels. He placed the torch in the available slot as the shimmering flames brighten the room with a glowing effect. Embers of flames sucked away the darkness like night turning to day.  
There stood the Iron Maiden in all her womanly glories, the keeper of secrets, while the old chairs resembled a prop from death row. This place sat like a ruined corpse rotting with a palpable silence.  
Except for the soft mumbling that erupted from the far corner of the room. The attic seemed to gasp at the Doctor who ventured further into the place of machines and science. She could definitely hear a mutter, a sad crying, leaping from the cowering dark.  
“Leave me alone... leave me... alone...”  
The Doctor wondered who it could be out in the attic. Was it another Corrupted skulking around in the area? The smell of the room was overpowering while the senseless mumble leaked from under one of the tables propped against the wall.  
Yet Udon found his servant Adeline huddled in a corner beneath the table, her eyes lifting with emptiness. Her slacked jaw trembled while her hands shook around her knees.  
Udon checked for her vitals, his hands brushing her hair from her eyes. Her skin looked like parched whiteness, a paleness painted her features.  
“She doesn't seem to be aware of us,” Udon said.  
“Shock,” the Doctor said. “She wouldn't be much help to us.”  
“How can you be so callous? She's worked for me for my family for two generations.”  
“There wouldn't be much of a family left once the werewolves tear this place apart.”  
“Sixty years old, and she was always so sharp in mind,” Udon said.  
Kneeling by Adeline, lifting her hands to feel the older woman's face, the Doctor took hold of her dazed features. The Doctor offered a passing glance like a medical doctor ready to give her report.  
“I think she should be fine.”  
“She could be like that for days, or even months,” Udon added.  
“Her mind regressed to a place where not even the werewolves could reach her,” the Doctor said. “She's an invalid.”  
“Do you treat your patients like that?”  
“It's not the a time to be tact.”  
“I fear you may be right, but Adeline deserves better treatment.”  
“Leave her there.”  
“I don't understand you,” Udon said.  
“There's only one thing you need to know about me: if you go to the eye of the storm, that's where you'll always find me.”  
“And you accuse me of being poetic.”  
“Those attic doors won't hold once the werewolves get wind of us being up here,” the Doctor said. “We don't have time to waste. We'll need to connect Porfirio's savage mind to that machine. And we'll need to connect you.”  
“That's the most insane idea ever,” Udon said.  
“I'm afraid there isn't much else I can come up with at short notice.”  
“Maybe this will be a way of ending my nightmare.”  
The Doctor glanced at Porfirio who looked like a half-man, his face twisting into a morbid proof of savagery. His hairy arms hanged with a dangling drift while his slouched body rested against Udon.  
So much about this room was dead, and the darkness seemed to sleep forever here. The choking air greeted them while the cold chill fell against their faces. It was the beautiful chill of death.  
The cradle of thunder and lightening could still be heard above, and the flowering picture of the storm rocked across the sky windows. Wild bursts of primal rage scratched at the midnight canvas.  
The Doctor didn't believe much in heaven.  
If she would find a place that could be called heaven, this would be it. She lifted her hands as if to give a visual disapproval of this lab. She ignored the dead body laying on the metal slab while she focused on something far more important.  
The answer to nightmares. 

Chapter forty-five  
Hands. Hair. Claws.  
The perfect change.  
It came to him like a dream.  
He remembered something about fighting the werewolves, and gave them a a few good licks. TJ remembered stomping one of them in the face while taking the arrow to drive it into another's shoulder. His plan was not to make it so easy for them.  
However, the one named Maggie seemed to take a bite out of him, like a first date going wrong. His flesh felt the pinched hurt of her twisting, gyrating teeth, grinding more into the deep of him.  
Was he now bitten? Was he going to change into he same things they were? Could something like that happen to defy the basic laws of nature? Maggie bit into him deeper, cutting and shredding, until she took a gouge from him for her own.  
It was more like a nightmare. First the inside call from the savage world jutted from the bottom of his soul. It was like he was being called back to his primal rage. And being pulled into a deep sleep.  
Now TJ felt a tear in his belly as the savage will, like a hammering pulse, buried into his lava-hot blood that burned with a seizure. His howls raked at his thoughts while the savagery took fine hold of him. His heart was pounding to the drum of terror as his hearing dulled with the mercy of howls.  
His face felt the jutting, crushing bone that cracked while the searing hairs tore from his skin like a rash. His eyes darted back and forth with hound-like sensations. His teeth were grinding slivers like the knife fingering through his gums. It was frightening, and painful.  
“What. Is. Happening. To. Me?” TJ shouted.  
With lasting acceptance, the crude changes in him were almost done while Maggie, Hiram and the others watched with interest. His limp form moved once more not as an archer, but a howling beast.  
His snorting snarls filled with seething spit that drooled from the corner of his mouth. His entire face was covered with pockets of hair while his radiant eye fueled with fire.  
His shoulders seemed more bent, his legs crouched, and he rattled in the hallway with all the savagery he could pull from his broken soul. He turned around with a sadistic quickness that alarmed the others, but he was welcomed into the pantheon of the Corrupted taking over the castle. TJ threw his furry fists into the air like a foetid cheerleader rallying the others. His last moments of humanity spoke with his final words:  
“Kill. The. Doctor!” he shouted.  
Now he moved with all the presence of an animal, stealing across the hallways as the parade of werewolves moved like a seeping plague in the castle halls. They stormed with hunger, and their tragic forms leaped and jumped like impish demons of the night.  
“I. Know. Where. She. Is!” TJ said.  
This groveling, huddling grandeur of horror filled the empty halls now, and the approaching grind of hunger filled their destructive habits. They knocked down expensive vases and ruined priceless paintings like crude vandals. They covered the whole of the halls like prejudiced shadows, searching for the remaining survivors.  
They knocked over statues and broke glass like drunkards, their skulking shapes gutted the night with the biting and clawing. The air screamed around these elusive, ravaged animals.  
Where were the humans?  
They were hiding.  
It would not be long before the werewolves get wind of them. It would only take a scent.  
TJ knew her scent by a long shot, and his taking the lead did not come to a any surprise to the others. He moved with a stagger, his face twisting upwards to watch the thrusting storm spilling with severe teardrops of rain. 

Chapter fourty-six  
“Shhh!”the Doctor shouted. “Shhh!”  
“What is it?” Udon said.  
“Thought I told you to shhhhh!”  
Nothing moved in the enclosed, wrapped spaces of the attic, and the only thing that could be heard was the rumbled storm that crawled over the giant castle like a giant beast.  
Now the tragedy of darkness remained in the attic crowded with computers and machines while the trembling charade in thunder ripped above. The attic became the backbone of the castle, being the most important room where the science apparatuses sat without a master. The flickering flashes showered the room where the dead man still laid against the slab in the cold temperatures.  
The Doctor held herself against the whispers of the room. The burst of silence painted the room with a odd solace as she began to struggle with Porfirio to the chair, sitting him down. Udon helped her as he grabbed the weight of the werewolf's body and settled him into place.  
“I don't hear anything,” Udon said.  
“Exactly,” the Doctor said. “We have a few moments to ourselves. We'll need to act quickly to get the experiments working again.”  
“There's no power here. I shut it off.”  
“I'll get you the power you need.”  
Udon tightened the straps around Porfirio who slouched in the chair like a lazy man, and his hands shook a little when he put the straps around the arms and legs to make sure the werewolf didn't get loose. There grew a danger in this since Porfirio could wake up at any time and cause a stir.  
With a mad dash, the Doctor helped Udon with getting the corrupted werewolf into place. Their hands worked faster against the clock, and the she moved with a crazy rage as she moved, circled and connected some wires from the dream machine to Porfirio 's head, making sure they made a bridge to his temples. Right now, and thankfully, Porfirio was sleeping it off. Perhaps he was chasing rabbits in his dreams?  
The lingering shadows continued to move across the room where Adeline remained in her corner, gibbering to herself like a girl lost in her thoughts. There was nothing that could be done for the poor woman.  
The Doctor and Udon worked with a flair to get things done. Their intellects worked together, the souls of science. And logic dictated the rules in this topmost room that opened to possibilities.  
“We need to make a mental bridge with the werewolves. A mind passage,” the Doctor said. “And then we need to bring you into the dream machine as well.”  
“I don't like the idea,” Udon said. “It's failed once already. What if it fails again?”  
“I'll be here to monitor you and the machine.”  
“I am not going to sit in that chair.”  
“Why wasn't you and Adeline turned into werewolves like the others in the village when the dream machine was on?” the Doctor said. “You were safe in your bubble of influence. You'll be safe again.”  
“How can you be sure?” Udon said. “This whole thing is a farce!”  
“We'll have to try it, won't we?” the Doctor shouted with absolute anger. “I don't want you losing your nerves, mister!”  
“You're a self-righteous woman who has no feelings for others!”  
“How dare you condemn me and others like that? We have to do this or everything be lost! The Corrupted needs to be stopped! Do you want to go down as a man of honor or someone who is a coward?”  
“This is exactly none of this will work! We can't even get along with each other!”  
“You're doing this! Or I'll drag you if I have to!” the Doctor shouted.  
“This thing doesn't feel ethical to me!”  
“We're going to finish what you began months ago! It's time the nightmares went away!” the Doctor shouted with enough anger to break the universe in two.  
The Doctor herd the clatter of sound as she reached out to hold Udon's arm, putting a clamp on the conversation. Now the chewing, biting and scratching could be heard in the same room. The Doctor swerved with a merry-go-round movement.  
There was a frenzied backlash of rattles that made the others jump, and Udon made a sound in his voice that sounded like he swallowed a frog. Night became dangerous again.  
The Doctor knew that she wasn't the angel of the heavens, or even close to it, but she promised salvation to where she went. She always became the healer. And that was what she was going to do here. She turned to the trespassing noises that caught her attention.  
It was Porfirio waking up.

Part Five  
Chapter forty-seven  
Rippling voices lifted with a scowling blast of hate while the maelstrom of hunger lusts filled the room, baying again at the midnight innocence that mocked him. Talons raked the chair with the promise of clawing death, and the cursed filled him with a relentless snarl.  
Wicked dog, he was. Heavy with throaty growls, Porfirio clattered and fought against the straps that he was trapped in. There was no human world in him anymore, just the struggle of savagery.  
Porfirio seemed to be calling his comrades who were in the castle. His deep-seated growing maintained like an animal trying to cut loose. Udon saw that the straps held, but getting close to the beast was another question he didn't want to test.  
The hooked fingers kept scratching at the wooden chair that held him, and Porfirio raged and snapped as the chair hit the floor several times with cracking efforts. The Corrupted was a raking hell bursting open, a fierce wall of savagery filed his excitable form.  
The Doctor snapped her fingers to Porfirio's face as she tried to calm him. Instead Porfirio was acting like a child with his crude snarls and guttural shouts. There grew sordid disappointment on the Doctor's own face.  
With a sudden burst, the Doctor slapped Porfirio across his face with a loud, commanding gesture. The sudden reaction caused the Corrupted to settle down a little, his senses grew confused. Porfirio looked like a barrage of emotions coming to a standstill.  
“Calm down, little man,” the Doctor said.  
The awkward moment made the werewolf Porfirio twitch around, listening to the falls of thunder above him. The matted hair covered almost all his face like a wild forest. He began to grow again.  
“We need you to help us,” the Doctor said. “Do you remember anything?”  
Porfirio growled in response.  
“Your daughter? Surely, you must remember your daughter Maggie?  
Porfirio seemed to be swaying in conflict, his sauntered mind working between the clocks of savage will. His feet stopped shaking while his hands remained on the armrests. There grew a grinding softness that reclined to the sufferings of the flesh. He seemed the mostly lonely man.  
“You must remember your daughter for her sake,” the Doctor said.  
Udon knelt down with the Doctor as he added to the conversation, his words soothing like a schoolhouse teacher: “Remember Maggie? Pretty, soft, gentle. She helped me once to buy some food when I visited the village.”  
“Mag-gie? Maggie,” Porfirio stuttered.  
“Yes, you're getting it,” the Doctor said.  
“Help you. I. Help. You. Maggie.”  
“That's close enough,” the Doctor said. “I think we can save the sedatives for now.”  
The Doctor got up from the werewolf in the chair while she worked on the machines, her fingers working in a ferocious order as she flicked several switches. She moved with focused thought while dutifully going through the motions with getting the machines set up.  
There was still nothing as the entire attic was cut off from the surge of power that fluttered outside like a waking nightmare. The Doctor poured over the machines with a relentless drive. There was still no power in this place.  
“I told you. No power,” Udon said. “I could go to the emergency generator.”  
“There's no need for you to be wandering around in the castle,” the Doctor said. “That would be suicide.”  
“There's no other way,” Udon said.  
“No, I need you here. And there is another way.”  
“The storm is well passed its prime, and we won't be able to get the needed electrical power for the rest of the experiment.”  
“You're a bundle of joy tonight,” the Doctor said.  
“Don't you see? It's useless.”  
The Doctor lifted a metal device from her coat pocket as she revealed the sonic screwdriver for Udon Frankenstein. Her eyes gazed at him with renewed inspiration, and she looked over her shoulder for a moment to see the locked doors to the attic was still undisturbed.  
She could feel the pressures of the darkness pouring into the room while she eyed the doors. This attic was like a gravemark closed off from the rest of the building, burrowed in shattered night. It seemed to sooth her tastes. Her sonic screwdriver made a jumping whirl, a broke noise.  
“I can still get you that added boost you need,” the Doctor said. “This sonic might still be good for a thing or two.”  
“Will it be enough?” Udon said. “We're talking about an electrical storm that would power the dreams we'll be entering.”  
“I got it on the highest settings. We'll find out.”

Chapter forty-eight  
“Come on, come on, come on!” the Doctor said.  
Her hand held the damaged sonic screwdriver as she aimed it at the number of machines that dallied in the dark, and now the intense bite of power bit into the air like the taste of copper. She hoped to stir the machines into life while fighting the darkness with all she could muster.  
Udon leaned over the machines as he readied himself to jumpstart the machine with his hands. He stood at a safe distance while he watched the machines like a father watching a newborn baby ready to be enter the new world. His face etched with passion, drugged with excitement. He checked the status of the machines where there was nothing. Udon shook his head to the Doctor.  
With a determined challenge, the Doctor threw the edge of the sonic screwdriver into the outlet of the dream machine which sent it into a hissing, fanatic surge. The frenzy of power, and lots of it, roared into a titanic rage, pouring into the rousing bath of brightness. The clatter of noise resumed while the machines came to life.  
“It's alive!” Udon shouted. “It's alive!”  
“No need to be so melodramatic,” the Doctor said.  
“Sorry. I couldn't help myself.”  
The sonic device exploded with a roar, and the cloud of smoke filled the room with a profuse sway. Her hands covered her face after she dropped the screwdriver on the floor, and she stood there a moment as she dragged her hands over her cheeks as if in exaperation.  
She seemed to look very frail, pale for a moment, and recomposed herself. The werewolf Porfirio seemed to whimper for the first time as fear dropped into him like a heavy weight.  
She lifted her eyes to see the ribbons of smoke rubbing the room with a thick stir, and she tried to catch a breath while she watched the smoke flutter like pea soup. The smoke cleared away to show the dream machine was now in working order while the power roamed through it like an active loop.  
It was working.  
The proof was right there.  
“It did work. We got this far,” Udon commented.  
“We have no choice in the matter,” the Doctor said.  
“There's something evil about that machine that digs into the hearts of men. It drives you in here. The heart,” Udon said as he pointed to his chest.  
“Spare me the poetry, Frankenstein,” the Doctor said. “Your sad attempts to get a rise out of me won't get a response. I'm not human.”  
“What?”  
“Never mind. The other werewolves know where we are now that we got the power running through here,” the Doctor added.  
“I know. You remember how you mention about suicide? I think we just committed the act right here. They'll be on top of us in no time.”

Chapter forty-nine  
There was the old wooden chair closer to the dream machine that gathered its arched structure and crude structure. In some ways, it resembled the chair you would find on death row. There was a great discomfort about the machine that seeped with an influence.  
Now the Doctor and Udon Frankenstein cluttered around the dream machine while readying for the patient to sit willingly in the chair. It looked more like a cesspool pit of despair more than a mere chair. The Doctor double-checked the vitals of the machine which hummed with perfect life.  
Her eyes glared with hard science while she quietly went through the motions, her features tightened with interest. Udon did the same before placing himself in the chair like a man who know this could be his last act.  
Udon Frankenstein felt like a pioneer of a different industry, stepping into uncharted territory that skirted the edges of science. His hands grabbed the gear that was connected to the chair while he placed it over his head. His hands moved into an orchestra of soothing touches. Science was always about the manipulation of emotions, wasn't it? And here he was willing himself to the mercy of the dream machine once again.  
“I suppose the straps will be necessary?” the Doctor said.  
“Yes. I could have a violent attack while I'm dreaming. My servant Adeline still holds a grudge against me the first time we operated the machine. I ended up half-choking her.”  
“There are always mistakes on the way to perfection,” the Doctor said.  
“It hasn't happened again since then.”  
“Y'see? That's good to know.”  
“I feel like an uninvited guest here in this chair.”  
“All right,” the Doctor said as she began to tighten the straps. “We'll need you to fall asleep for this.”  
“There are... some pills in the drawer over there next to the cabinet. They'll put be under right away. What about you, Doctor?”  
“I told you I'll need to monitor everything here,” the Doctor said. “I'll make sure everything goes well in this room.”  
The Doctor strolled over to the drawers, looking like a towering beauty with her black dress crackling around her legs with a soft effect. And her face remained framed with a blissful nest of dark hair that was pulled back into a bunch, showing the taunt features of her eyes, nose and mouth. Her intellectual presence grew dominating in a breathless whirl of movements she made. Her hair shifted like cascading seas of dark.  
She found the packet of pills in the lower drawer, ignoring the rattle of thunder that boomed above her like an attention seeker. The Doctor grabbed the small item in her hands as she stepped back into the center of the room where Udon Frankenstein sat.  
Porfirio glanced at the others with a half-cocked twitch of his head. The Doctor shifted through the curtains of candle light that showered the room with a beaming brightness.  
She noticed that the pills didn't look like the type to be taken into the mouth. It resembled a small token that fit into the palm of her hand. She stood next to Udon while holding the sleeping pills.  
“You'll have to break it under the nose,” Udon said. “I need to inhale the aroma.”  
“All right,” the Doctor said.  
“You might want to turn away a bit so you don't get a whiff of this stuff.”  
“Pleasant journeys, Dr. Frankenstein,” the Doctor said.  
“I doubt it.”  
“I'll try to help you when I can. You'll just need to follow my voice when you're in the stages of REM sleep. I'll try to guide you through the worst of it.”  
The Doctor broke the tiny tablet as Udon breathed in the passages of the medicine, and he nodded off into a slipping darkness in a matter of seconds. The stuff of dreams and science would become the cross-roads while the carnage of sleep dragged Udon Frankenstein back into the sleeping heavens that he became afraid of. 

Chapter fifty  
His mind slipped into a stream of dreams in a short while the hook of reality loosened its grip on him. He was now plodding through the strange lands of dreams. There could be now way he was faking his sleep like little children did in the late hours of night. Instead the adversary of darkness dragged him back to this lucid frontier.  
Now the shadows and the kingdom of swaying illusions pressed around Udon Frankenstein as he became the passenger of the dream world.  
The Doctor kept a firm hand at the dream machine as she watched every detail and change. Her fingers switched a few nodes while she followed the ease of slumber that Udon subjected himself into. She watched the small screen in which his dreams could be viewed.  
She hated the idea of babysitting someone like Udon Frankenstein, but she needed to remind herself that she protected the human race. And that was what she did.  
It was so lonely out here, so quiet.  
The sweeping, growling sound barged in the darkness from the hallways, and the Doctor turned to hear the doors rattling with savage grunts. She felt her neck creak as the foul stench of the wolfish hunger leaned against the wooden twin doors that were fortified. Though the Doctor knew it would be matter of time as the language of growls embraced the silence. Porfirio seemed to utter a few groans, but the Doctor hushed him.  
“I hear them out there,” Adeline said from her small, dark corner.  
Her features looked delirious, her eyes grew into pages of ear. She simply huddled more into the corner while trying to stay away from the approaching doom of monsters.  
The Doctor stood in the attic space while hearing the disconcerting growls inside, clearly making her concentrate more on her chores. The ramble of enemies outside indulged in their feast of howls. Now the frightening shadows flickered under the doors while the weight of attacks pressed into the doors like a creeping presence.  
Ignoring the masses of moon-hungry beasts, the Doctor continued flicking the switches. Her hands glided over the flowering buttons that she pressed, and she watched Udon sit on the edge of danger.  
It would be a long night.

Chapter fifty-one  
In the crushing blitz, and the eager maelstrom, the Corrupted attack grew into a frenzied lashing. Throwing one stinging blow after another, their sharp talons scratched at the attic doors that held against their primal leverage. Their howls spread like a seamless darkness.  
Their flames of savagery bit at the doors while the wood splintered away like torn pages from a broken book. Despite the sleepless rage, this cult of wolves, the doors held together like a small miracle.  
Being in his werewolf form, TJ looked like a nightmarish caricature of himself. Sniveling, snarling, his beast-like face twitched with a fierce hatred. His eyes looked like torn slits of moonless stares. His paws stretched into painful lengths of sharp nails while his paws flattened against the floor. TJ crouched low while he gazed around with a swivel of his hairy head.  
The assault of his muscles, and the stirring desire for blood, made him jump what seemed like several feet at once. TJ landed near the attic doors as he lowered himself to peer through the keyhole.  
Through the space, he could see a glimpse of the Doctor and the other man Frankenstein bickering with each other like a married couple. They were both sitting with the dream machine that resembled a cabinet of buttons and switches. It was science bellowing from the depths of knowledge.  
Oh yes, TJ recognized the woman.  
Where had he seen her before? His thoughts turned back to the clouded memories of his life which became a sordid mess. Confusion, anger bolted through his savage mind. The TARDIS? What was the TARDIS? His thoughts danced like fire while his long hair hanged like sinews of the forest.  
He could see the civilized world before him, and it made him angry. He glowered at the others like Maggie or Hiram who lounged around like animals looking for a meal. Only the mad hunger spoke to him.  
So with assured footing, they clutched and violently tore at the attic doors like a mountain of ferocity. Slashing and hacking, they chipped away the oak wood that remained resistant to their maddening prowess.  
TJ leaped at the doors like a wrecking ball while Maggie took a turn snapping at the doors with her teeth. The command of her nails clawed the doors with a possessed evil. Even wearing the cross around her neck, it did nothing to stop her from changing into a fanged horror. She batted at the doors like someone swatting at an insect.  
TJ could see the imminent threat inside the attic room, and his howls signaled for the others to circle around the doors for a more collective attack. He could see the towering shadows, and the looping shapes, moving closer to him with an understanding.  
It was like a swarm now. The werewolves swamped and thumped like a battering ram without much success. Though, sooner or later, the doors will yield to their stirring, rampant attempt to break into Udon Frankenstein's laboratory. And get to the Doctor. :  
“I'll rip your face off, Doctor!” TJ snarled.  
It angered him that the woman ignored him as she busied herself with whatever experiments were in the lab. How dare she become oblivious to him? His soul-searching terror focused on the woman as he sneered at her with a grisly intent. Felt like a pet being put to the sidelines.  
His massive teeth sank in the air with thirsting need while his claws raked the doors again, hearing the crippled thumping of doors holding together. He gave an upper cut at the wood while the others tore into the attic doors with the bestial wreckage.  
The oncoming werewolves did not stop as they were determined to find a way through. They tore and raked with gigantic pendulum sweeps, and the savages rippled like a terrible nightmare. They could be heard thumping against walls and banding around the doors with a patter of noises that filled the castle halls.  
It was the sound of boorish downpour. They became the savage tempest that would never end. 

Chapter fifty-two  
Sometimes the darkness could pull you into places you didn't want to go. It could be a distraction. Dreams were like a sculpture that you could mold into your own liking. Sometimes the dreams could shape you into something in their own accord.  
The dreams could nag you until the furtive blackness engulfed you like a watery sleep. So many dreams seeped into the castle of souls while many yearned for a different place to find truth.  
Yet Udon Frankenstein found himself slipping between the cracks of the calm, halfheartedly stepping through the quagmire of his clouded thoughts. This aggravated world snatched at him with cold, screeching hands—restless things. He didn't like it here. No one should. There's a tombstone silence gripping him. Why did it all seem B&W?  
He woke up to see he was in the middle of the classroom where he taught his lecture on dreams, and the symbolism that the mind worked out in the clockwork of sleep. It was his greatest passion.  
He remembered telling people how they would have three or four dreams a night, but they would forget most of their dreams. Some students didn't believe him.  
Yes, it was a hard pill to swallow. In some ways, the mind would comb the dreams for answers and find salvation at the end. All of this. It was all before he moved to New Transylvania.  
So the tables and chairs sat in the classroom while the bungled chalkboard scrolled across the wall like a black canvas. He gave his speech about his latest thoughts on dreams, and how people used dreams to anchor themselves in reality. Without dreams, people would be forever lost in their sleep. This was the crux of his argument.  
Udon Frankenstein stood on the raised pedestal while several students at in their seats almost like cardboard cut-outs sitting in their bored existence. They sat like lumps while listening to his rattling speech.  
Something was wrong here.  
This was a classroom he taught at the Willowmont University of the Sciences, which was fifteen years ago. Udon noticed that he carried a medical book in the cradle of his hand while he stared mutely around at his students.  
There sat so many of them including a black man in his twenties, a young Asian woman who offered a trifle yawning, and other people who came from all walks of life here.  
Udon said, “It was believed once that life came from the stars,” Udon said. “Where there is a supernova, a dying star giving its last breath, the living stuff of the star sprinkles to other worlds throughout the universe. And so life begins elsewhere. And our dreams come from this long, uninterrupted desire to explore. We want to explore... and our dreams help us to explore the surroundings around us.”  
It was a pretty good speech, and Udon seemed proud of himself. Udon was like a little boy who was eating too much cotton candy, his nerves getting wound up. Udon glanced around at his audience until his eyes came to rest on a young, pretty girl who looked the other way. Why were no one interested in hearing about dreams? They should be.  
Her flowery features looked like fair notes of beauty, but she didn't look back at Udon. The Asian girl poked her nose in a book in front of her instead.  
“Well, er, the dreams becomes the stuff of legacy,” Udon continued. “The dreams help us to understand ourselves better. And the cosmos. Here's an interesting perspective... unlocking the keys to the dreams may help us to solve the mystery of the universe.”  
What was wrong with dreams? The dreams of begging, or the softness of a spreading garden? People shouldn't turn away from dreams, but to learn about them.  
No one made a noise while they sat in their seats, and the agony of silence climbed into the large auditorium room. Udon brushed off his jacket with hand with a great confidence as he cleared his throat.  
Udon Frankenstein felt at home with the science, belonging here in the ivory towers. He could see the students carried no interest here, so perhaps it was better to involve them in a discussion. No one should be left out in a school class. He pulled his book into the hook of his arm, hoping to keep his foot in the civilized world.  
“Anyone has any questions?” Udon said.  
His eyes cast around to see the unmoving crowd as he saw people of different colors and shapes, though many of them were undeterred by his magical words. The people sat like footstools while he looked between them with piercing eyes.  
Udon saw one woman who lifted her hand high in the air, and he saw the familiar features, the black hair dangling around her face like hanging silk curtains. He noticed that she got her hair in the way he liked it... straight, pretty.  
It was the Doctor. 

Chapter fifty-three  
“Anyone else have a question?” Udon said. “Anyone?”  
The other students in the audience didn't make an effort to afford a challenge in the debate. There grew a sort of complacency in the crowd. No one else lifted their hands to show any interest. Only the Doctor, raising her hand, remained the anchor in the room for him. It frightened him to see her like this.  
“Yes?” Udon said.  
“What are you doing here?” the Doctor said.  
“I'm teaching a class, you silly girl. Can't you see? The classroom, the discussion.”  
“Uh-huh.”  
“More to the point, what are YOU doing here?” Frankenstein said.  
“I'm your guide, Doctor Frankenstein. I'm going to help you go in the right direction. I'm still on the outside looking in.”  
“I don't need your help.”  
“You need to dig deeper, to go further into the realm of your sleeping thoughts. You can't stay here,” the Doctor said.  
“Why not? I like it here. Maybe I'll stay here forever.”  
“You're being tangled with your past. This is a place of comfort for you. That's dangerous because it's dragging you down.”  
“I'm afraid to go down further into the dark,” Udon confessed. “I'm afraid of what the dark will bring to me.”  
“So am I,” the Doctor said. “But you'll find no answer here. We need to dig deeper into the sleeping world. We need you to connect with the others to a different place.”  
“The others?”  
“Yes.”  
The Doctor got up from the chair as she threaded between the students, looking like a beacon of intellectual beauty, and she moved with a shadowy grace.  
She descended down the class stairs while the reality of this dream tried to keep its hold on Udon. She reached the pedestal as she lifted her hand. She reminded him of the beautiful butterfly who would spread her wings.  
Udon took her hand.  
He was glad that he did. 

Chapter fifty-four  
They were somewhere different now.  
Shifting clouds soothed the skies with a gentle day that relaxed like a fluttering leaf floating down a river. It grew soft, quiet here with the landscape rewarded with a beautiful map of details.  
Oh yes, the river was here too. Udon Frankenstein sat on the river's shore while his bent knees protruded as he held a fisherman's pole. The line and hook strung out into the water before him like a waiting game. Today, and the rest of the tomorrows, Udon didn't have a care in the world. That was how he wanted to live his life—a man without purpose.  
He lifted the pole a little while testing the waters again. No bite yet. His hand tightened on the reeling as he fishes seemed to be very shy. Udon remained on the rubble of rocks that pressed against the shore.  
The Doctor sat with him on the shore too, her slouched form leaning near him. It grew easy to rely on nostalgia while you were out here. She looked very beautiful under the rising sunlight, and the marble-smooth cheeks looked cluttered with the swaying hair that looked like a messy patch. And yet, despite her hair looking like a mess, the Doctor looked pretty as the winds of heaven.  
She watched the lulls of the countryside while she assessed the surroundings with a critical mind. Her lips parted while she seemed a little absorbed by the calm of the passing day.  
Udon gave her a smile as he felt the tender warmth of the sunlight nagging him. He didn't mind. There sat an old farmhouse with a silo standing like a towering reminder of agricultural bliss. The wind made a gasping sound as the Doctor leaned forward as she hugged her knees to her chest.  
“Why are you here?” Udon said.  
“I'm helping you,” the Doctor said. “What is this place?”  
“It's safe,” Udon said.  
“You can't stay here. You have to keep digging deeper and deeper into that abyss. There is no place for you here. You would be stagnated. You'll be unable to move on.”  
“So you keep saying, but I'm not listening to you. Not anymore.”  
“This is ridiculous. I might have to pull you by the hand as if you're a child.”  
“No, I'm not leaving this place. I'm afraid of facing... them.”  
“It wouldn't be right for you to be here. So many things you need to set right. I have to get you away from here.”  
“I like this place.”  
Udon caught something really big at the end of the fishing line as reeled it in, and he made fast motions as he kept tugging. Whatever it was in the water wasn't fighting, but Udon still had to pull with his strength as if he caught some old shoe from the bottom. He was exerting himself as he tugged, pulled, feeling the taunt fishing line struggle.  
Now the water bubbled around the fishing line extending into the river, and the slow leaps of water grew more intense while a man climbed out of the waters with a fishing hook stuck to him. His lumbering form loomed like powerful cliffs.  
It was Antanas Luik.

Chapter fifty-five  
The newcomer walked right up to the shore while he still look like a werewolf, looking a little rough. His face was struck down by the roaring tufts of hair or the curse of the moon. Antanas stood in the middle of the water before moving onto land to get himself dried off. His werewolf features wiped away any signs of being human. His grim lips tightened into a snarl.  
However, he lifted his feet out of the slinking skin of hair like that of a snake shedding his skin. The monstrous creature presented his real self, the Antanas Luik who was trapped inside the hairy shell. Antanas gave Udon a nod as he looked normal.  
“I know,” Antanas said. “I like it here too.”  
“You seem fine,” Udon said. “Breathing, in good shape.”  
“Isn't it great?”  
“I shot you.”  
“Well, I forgive you. There's always a place for you here. All you have to do is let yourself go.”  
“So I should surrender myself?” Udon said.  
“You're here. There's no other place for you to go,” Antanas added. “Why keep fighting?”  
“What about you?”  
“I'm dead. And not dead.”  
“And I shot you becaue you wouldn't stop turning into a werewolf.”  
The Doctor tugged at Udon who was slipping deeper into the conversation with his dead friend, losing himself in the summer day. The river, the barn, and the twisting parchment of grounds soaked with life became a drowning picture of perfect beauty. Udon was getting caught in a rut, not making an effort to get up from the shore.  
The world changed for Udon for the better, and he saw nothing wrong with it. He liked it here, and watched his friend Antanas Luik get rid of the monster skin. With a shrug, Antanas dropped the discarded skin into the water where it sank.  
It was so easy to put away memories. Antanas stood on the splashed rocks while he grew nimble on his feet. His hair fluffed wildly while he stood in a heroic pose like some gladiator ready to beat back all the fears, nodding with acceptance. He hoped that Udon would do the same.  
“Thank you for saving my life,” Antanas said.  
“I like it here. It's perfect,” Udon said. “No regrets.”  
The Doctor turned to Udon as her words hissed through her lips, fingers tightened around his shoulder as she tried to get him out of his funk. She gripped his hand with hers, holding it the way one would hold a drowning man. She felt the barking sunlight toiling against her like splashes of hotness, distracting.  
It was like fighting through a maelstrom of confusion, and the taxing emotions pulled Udon down with a smiling force. He snuggled in the idle pleasantries of this place, eager, helpless, a fool in a waiting room that could be limbo.  
He cared about none of that while he enjoyed the lazy, impotent air of this landscape. His efforts grew frivolous while he remained at rest.  
Where was he? What place was this? The old farm from his chilldhood days brought back to the edge of dreams.  
The Doctor clutched Udon's shoulder with his hand while she leaned forward, her hair dragging over her face. Her soothing voice would be an anchor for Udon if he listened to her. The separation of reality felt like a weighted thing for him. He took a safer, better route.  
“Come on!” the Doctor said.  
So Udon liked the concise, picture-perfect setting where nothing wrong could happen. It's just what the doctor ordered, wasn't it? Everything was one hundred percent fine here. No worries, no concerns, just a complacent feeling. There grew a fairy tale beauty about this place.  
“You need to keep going,” the Doctor said. “Your will is growing stagnant.”  
“What's wrong with it here?” Udon said. “I can do some fishing here and Antanas is okay. Why would I want to move away from all this?”  
“You're creating a day of triumph for yourself in your dreams instead of a day of tragedy.”  
“It's better this way. I don't have any guilt.”  
“You're only fooling yourself. Having flaws, making mistakes, is what makes you a person. Human.”  
“I don't want to go from this place,” Udon said.  
“I'm here with you. And I'll walk with you.”  
“It feels like we're right on the edge of hell itself. I can hear those voices of savagery raking at me. Their horror smothers me.”  
“Those people need your help.”  
“It frightens me. It's something that scares me so much because it keeps hanging in the back of my head like a darkness. There are some things I want to forget. Isn't there something you want to forget?”  
The Doctor looked at Udon for a moment as her thoughts stirred. She felt the fiery embers of her memories that could last many lifetimes sweeping her mind. Clogging her senses, she seeped between the bitter anguish of her past as both her hearts thumped like busy drums. He could feel the pressure in her head making her gasp.

Chapter fifty-six  
“There are people out there who needs you,” the Doctor said. “A whole village of people. Would you leave them behind?”  
“No, no, I wouldn't,” Udon said. “That wouldn't be fair.”  
“Don't you think it's time to leave here?” the Doctor said.  
“It crossed my mind.”  
Udon got up from the shore for the first time hearing himself in peak condition. If this place was real, he would hear his own knees crack. His body was often sore and blistered with age. And his knees always snapped with a sound every time he got up from the chair.  
He decided to get out of this place. It would be better for him, and Antanas Luik who remained on the shores like he belonged there. He looked so innocent standing in the broken sunlight that looked like sure-fire tears.  
“I'll have to be leaving now,” Udon said.  
“Already?” Antanas said. “You just got here.”  
“Thanks for the small talk.”  
“Sure, no problem. You're sure you don't want to say for a while?”  
“I got other places I need to go,” Udon said. “Some problems I need to fix.”  
“Well, good luck.”  
Udon shut his eyes as he tried to control his own thoughts, and the surroundings that languished around him. And the dream world slipped again while he could feel the blanket of darkness stealing away the crux of his soul. Somehow the blackness leached at him as he took another step forward while the bitter taste of savagery raked at him.  
He kept his mind clear as he continued to close his eyes, wanting to rid of all the distractions in his head. It was something he needed to do on his own. He moved into the thirsting darkness before him while he called on his courage. The night was coming on strong and fast.  
With a sudden, lumbering movement like a shadow in the distance, Udon could see something stumbling towards him in front of the clouded air. It looked like a shuffling creature that growled with a beastial savagery. The Doctor stopped to turn and look as well, her eyes narrowing at the thrusting man who stood before them.  
This one looked like a caricature of what Antanas was, or something far worse. This creature had the nuts and bolts planted in his neck while his face gave a graveyard look that suggested an empty soul trapped in a strutting corpse. With another staggering step, the creature moved with a powerful strength.  
“Should I know who this is?” Udon said.  
“I think you should go,” the Doctor said.  
“It looks like a m-monster.”  
“Nothing to do with you. Now go.”  
“Why do I feel so guilty about him?”  
“This one has nothing to do with you. This one has more to do with your great-great grandfather.”  
“How do you know?”  
“I know!”  
The Doctor shoved Udon ahead of her while the monster crept forward like it was going to say something. His lumbering, massive shape teetered slightly as he tried to speak only in guttural, sad sounds.  
However, not getting any response, the creature grew angrier like it was throwing a childish fit. The monster threw around its arms in a frantic mode while it groped, shoved and grappled at the fog-like air around it. Was this the Frankenstein monster or a caricature of one formed in dreams?  
The Doctor kept guiding Udon Frankenstein along out of the cluttered memories, and made a good distance ahead of the monster who fell behind them like a lost child. She wasn't sure who to feel more sorry for... Dr. Frankenstein who was living with the guilt that followed him down the many generations of his cursed family or the monster who remained a wretched, patchworked thing that tried to be human.  
She could still hear the sounds of its cry behind her as she stepped forward, not wanting anything more to do with that walking horror. The Doctor thought better to put it out of their minds. For Dr. Frankenstein's sake. Nothing could be more upsetting than seeing one's failed creation.  
“Hurry! We need to leave now!” the Doctor said. 

Part Six  
Chapter fifty-seven  
For all the wisdom of the darkness, and the howling of of air, he could feel the coldness reaching at him. His solitary figure moved further into the depths of his dreams while the landscape changed again. Was that the barking of the wolves he heard?  
Something about this place bothered him, and he could feel the softness of the night crowding him. Why was he here? The thousand shades of the dark grew more revealing to him.  
They sounded so savage, so hopeless. It was like hearing the grinding, twisting of monsters in the distance.  
Udon wondered if he should appeal to their human side. That would be the right thing to do. He would have to separate them from his fears. He would have to overcome his own fears in order to face the nocturnal others of the savage wilderness.  
He called out into the darkness, “You must fight this savagery that's taken hold of you! Go back to your natural state. Remember what you were before the savage ilk took hold of you!”  
The howling grew more like a storm of cries that cut through the landscape, punching and gutting the wounds of the air with the continued aggression. They moved like the children of hunters. The burrowing of growls grew more intense.  
“Listen to me!” Udon shouted. “You can beat this primal rage. Any of you can do that. You don't need to submit yourselves to this kind of savage hell anymore!”  
The growling became restless like a thunderstruck horror, growing more real. This awful destiny in the savage world became passages smearing against humanity. The growls grew more intense, the howls biting the air. Udon felt like a rabbit running away from the hunters again.  
“Fight these primal urges!” Udon shouted. “These are just nightmares drowning you. Wake up! Wake up from it all!”  
The howling still centered around Udon Frankenstein as he watched the hollowed grief of conflicted souls trapped in their wary savage forms. The sounds of the growl grew closer to him as he felt the rapture of beasts moving towards him. He watched the cradle of approaching forms outlined against the living night.  
Udon saw Porfirio step out from the smoking clouds, moving out of the womb of consciousness, while glaring back with an unrestrained hatred. The dark-stained doorway into this place opened to the now-struggling form of Porfirio who brushed against Udon in this river of darkness.  
Swerving around, Udon could see the seas of nothingness mocking him. The fuel of confusion and the world of skinning ferocity filled this place. Udon could see the ravaged barriers which latticed like a dark, brewing forest. The nightmare was taking hold of him instead of him battling the darkness. He could see Porfirio taking swipes at him with claws.  
Porfirio was more beast than man now. 

Chapter fifty-eight  
Porfirio Pennington crouched before Udon like a rabid dog ready to spring, and there were others behind him flitting like broken shadows. With a slashing, moving with great speed, Porfirio clawed at Udon with a senseless stir. Udon felt his arm maimed by the wailing claws, tattered flesh left in ruins while his savage will rattled the invading man in the dream.  
Did this mean Udon would become a Corrupted too? He felt the seething fire of the cut spreading on his arm. He watched with a helpless glance as Porfirio jumped with a triumphant glee. Udon could feel the savage poison burning in him, pulling him deeper into the blood-stained world.  
Porfirio made more growls filled with hatred, his eyes playing with the bedeviled red glow that hardened in his eyes. His baying howling lashed out in the darkness as he lifted craned his neck. Porfirio was talking in the language of the savages.  
“It's too strong,” Udon said. “They're like a plague.”  
Someone stood beside him like a breath of air, and her presence grew soothing to him.  
“You can fight them,” the Doctor said. “We're all better than the beast. You know this.”  
“What is this place?”  
“It's the dead end of darkness. Now you have to fight it.”  
“Hurts my head. I can feel it in my blood now.”  
“That's just all in your mind. You too can be affected by the savage mind, but you can reverse it. Turn it against itself,” the Doctor said.  
“Yes, yes, I have to try. I have to think of the touch of flowers, and the softness of the ground. Maybe the gentle flow of the water as I put my hands into it.”  
“Keep a hold of those thoughts,” the Doctor said. “Hang onto them. Use that to give you strength. Remember your humanity. And help the others to remember roots.”  
Udon Frankenstein reached out with his hand as he leaned forward, without being afraid, and his fingers groped through the hazy darkness that howled around him. He could hear the keening growls raising and lifting, snorting with blasting rage.  
He saw Porfirio became the poet for the savage race. The darkness moved like an awful thing. Udon stretched his hand out as he moved with slow, cautious progress. Now he tightened his hand without fear. 

Chapter fifty-nine  
Stepping through the swashing, lucid darkness, with a soft murder of light, Udon groped between the feasting shadows of this dream forest he was in. nothing seemed real to him, and he followed the paths through the knot of darkness that growled and hissed.  
Something about the air thirsted for the darkness, and the riot of shapes grew into a harsh fever. Udon could feel the shadows flitting around in a raw sadism. In some ways, he wondered if he would get attacked or mauled right here. He remembered how if you were killed in your own dreams, that the same thing could happen to you in real life: the dream could feel so real that your heart could come to a rushing stop.  
Udon took another brave step towards the crowd that ignited with a guilty, wrenching foulness. He wasn't going to let them condemn him anymore, struggling against their savage will.  
“Wake up! Wake up now!” Udon called out.  
He shouted into the opening epistle of dreams, fanning the destruction of the savage world in favor of something more civil. He kept groping his hands through the somber dark while ignoring the pain in his arm that crackled with fiendish stir. No, he wasn't going to let himself turn into a Corrupted. Not like the others.  
With a sudden retort, Udon saw the furry hand clawing at him. The jutting figure of the thrusting beast, like a shadowy dog, he heard the sordid growls berating him. It was much deeper now. Where was it?  
Udon was going to fight this nightmare.  
The nightmare world.  
How ugly it became.  
The stuff that dreams were made of.  
He could see the Corrupted's hand lashing at him with a sideswipe, glaring and glistening with seeping, hungry embrace. It was covered with the abundant threads of hair, and it looked like some stray animal. Udon grabbed the werewolf by the hand.  
It was Porfirio.  
And something happened. 

Chapter sixty  
With a shouting rage, and the aghast of menace, the werwolf growled from the bottom of his savage soul. There was no way for Udon to turn back as he held the creature's hand.  
He thought about the flowers in the fields, and the beautiful form of Maggie who was this man's daughter. And taste of strawberries when they reached their peak during the spring season. All those things, and more, flooded Udon's mind like a spiraling picture. There was still goodness in Udon Frankenstein's heart.  
It was time to spread a positive message in this nightmare. Udon held Porfirio's hand by force while the Corrupted remained reluctant, trying to spur away with a savage lust.  
“You can turn back from all this,” Udon shouted. “Don't let yourself tempted of this horror. You're human, not beast!”  
Udon struggled as his face grimaced as he held Porfirio's hand. Was Udon fighting a hurricane of helplessness here? Was he fighting this kingdom of savagery that too big, too much?  
“They're still too strong!” Udon said. “That savage hate! They're too deep into it. Hold hands, all of you! Turn back this savage nightmare!”  
With a surprising move, the Doctor stepped alongside him as she gripped his hand for the first time. Her fingers latticed with his as her soothing, pale hand gleamed against his own with folding bliss.  
Her hair rumbled around her features while the thrust of her smile broadened. Her fingers tightened over his as she felt the thrill of the chase.  
“I think you need a little help,” the Doctor said.  
“I'm glad to hear you say that,” Udon said. “I was getting lost.”  
“No more hiding. No more running away.”  
They were able to turn the tide of savagery, and Udon felt the cloud of his own humanity boosting. Now he was tackling the others in this dream-state, breaking a small ray of light into this dark-dream landscape. The roar of the savage became a lesser cry.

Chapter sixty-one  
In the Frankenstein castle.  
In the softer whispers of the hallway, lessening in noise, the werwolves calmed down to a ragged growl. Now they sounded more like purring kittens as they receded into the slow darkness that cradled their huddled forms. They seemed more subdued now.  
The shape of werewolves down the castle halls began to make a change. Gone were the abundance of hair and the craggy savage whims that hanged on their faces. Now their skin grew smooth as a newborn baby. They did not look like werewolves anymore, but people.  
They were slipping back, back into what they were. The seething sight of wolves grew into something normal. That devilish claim to their souls reeled back into the darkness.  
“I feel ill, someone from the crowd said.  
A little haggard, like a crushing burst exploded in his mind before clearing, TJ regained his composure on his feet. He looked over his shoulders to see a few other people sharing in his disdain for what happened. People were muttering, wondering how they got here.  
No more savage eyes, no more sabbatical rituals of hunger, no more slippery madness ending in bloodshed.  
Now the troubled forms of villagers stirred in the middle of the moo while the murder of the moon winked out from the ark influence. The people of New Transylvania were no longer the werewolves that terrorized this castle.  
No more nightmares.  
“What happened?” Porfirio said.  
Porfirio seemed to stagger, his blocky form swaying with fatigue as he lifted his hand to his magnificent bald head. He stood around like a drunkard who couldn't remember last night's buzz.  
“It's the long night again, isn't it?” Hiram said from the back of the crowd. “Did it happen again?”  
“How come it's still dark out?” Porfirio said. “It was always morning when this nightmare gets done.”  
“I don't know,” Hiram shot back.  
“I remember being in the inn, and shouting at you guys. And then I remember the pain. What is this place?” the innkeeper said.  
“Frankenstein's castle,” TJ said.  
“Huh?”  
“What matters now is that you're all safe.”  
“What sorcery is this?” Porfirio sneered.  
“It is witchcraft at that!” Hiram added. “That same spell took us again!”  
Now the crowd became more agitated, their faces grew pale as the crack of thunder felt like a dying breed of noises. The cluster of bewildered faces pondered over the strange elixir that took them.  
The hallway leading to the attic looked more like a ravaged piece of forgotten architecture. This snaking, curving hall cradled with a makeshift of old age.  
Now they knotted together with a rising tone, growing more angry, like small children throwing a fit. The villagers flocked like scared chickens while the wolfish transformation skewered their hurt souls. The castle hallway became a place of ugly secrets.  
With a rallying motion, Porfirio Pennington led both the men and women into a chanting parade of angry, hollowed shouts. They fitted together while cloaked by the soft banter of candlelight that danced on their mixed expressions.  
It was guilt, anger and finally accusation. Porfirio resembled the ringleader of the bunch, as he looked around to see how lost he was in his defeated guilt. He had to get something to blame.  
His head swiveled as he looked around again, growing more concerned.  
“Where's my daughter?” Porfirio said.  
“Right here, pa pa,” Maggie said in the crowd.  
Her voice sounded tired, ragged, and so did her father's. And the shushing began under the dragging storm, like a sleepless outcast, roared in the distance. Porfirio could see his daughter standing in the crowd too, her hazy features glancing with more darting gifts of blame.  
“You take my daughter?” Porfirio said.  
“You're very quick to judge,” TJ shot back.  
“How would I know you're not in cahoots with Udon Frankenstein himself? He's a menace. You're all a menace!”  
“Look around you! You're not being menaced anymore!”  
“You and that doctor woman. All of this trouble started soon as you showed up!”  
“You seem to accuse before you know all the facts!” TJ shouted.  
“It's her fault, isn't it? That witch? And that Dr. Frankenstein!” Porfirio continued his tirade. “The old stories come back to haunt us...”  
“Daddy, maybe you should wait a moment?” Maggie said. “There's a lot we don't know about this. Maybe it's not a good idea to jump into conclusions.”  
“Know your place, young girl. I lived here in New Transylvania all my life, and questions didn't get asked until these scientist types moved in!” Porfirio roared with a loud sneer.  
TJ was about to jump him, growing tired of his slurs. His fists tightened as he listened to Porfirio shouting enough rants to spread a thuggish riot. Without a doubt, Porfirio would have much support on his side from the likes of Hiram and others who agonizing with fear. They were still in the middle of a fear cloud.  
So TJ would be more than happy to take on a few of them or all of them at once like a human tornado. He knew he might just take out Porfirio first in his attack. It would improve his heckling mood for sure. Someone people deserved a punch in the face. Porfirio was one of them.  
“It's her fault!” Hiram shouted. “She brought this down on us!”  
“Where is she?” Porfirio shouted.  
Now the crowd went into a rage, their collected faces rippled with genuine hatred for foreigners. They began to light the torches along the hallways and the stirring, gorging mob reared its ugly head. They sprouted with manic, distort voices in their playpen of anger.  
Now they moved with like the domino effect as they tore down the hallway with a fanatical brawl. They headed towards the double doors which led to the attic above. The villagers pounced violently in larger group.  
“Gather yourselves, everyone!” Porfirio shouted. “We must stop this nightmare!”  
“I'd suggest you leave the Doctor alone,” TJ announced.  
“He works with her,” Hiram said. “What should we do to this Chinese?”  
Some of them began to muse over the idea of doing away with the foreigner, and their hands lifted into action. It was no use dealing with a bunch of unruly fools.  
“Where is that woman of witchcraft!” someone shouted in the crowd.  
Someone else tore through the attic doors from the other side, and it was a woman wearing long clothes. The expression of anger matched the throbbing power in her voice.  
The jutting figure moved like a storm as she confronted the group with a collision of words. Sweeping doors clashed back with a cracking noise while her robes shifted around her legs.  
“A woman of science, you mean?” the Doctor yelled. 

Chapter sixty-two  
“It's your fault this happened!” Porfirio said. “You and that Frankenstein should be tried for your crimes.”  
“Why is it that there's always a bad apple in every crowd?” the Doctor said.  
“It was you who tried to hide in the shadows to make your experiments.”  
“I'm sorry, Doctor,” TJ interrupted. “I tried to stop them.”  
“It's all right,” the Doctor said.  
With a brewing explosion of temper, igniting with a soul-searching aghast of eternal vexation, she turned to Porfirio who led his group: “That's enough OUT of you! I want you to stop this right now!”  
“Your presence is a menace,” Porfirio said. “And that Frankenstein fellow. The curse of Frankenstein is still with us to this very day!”  
“You leave him alone,” the Doctor said. “He's had a very tiring day. He's exhausted.”  
“I demand to know what's going on!” Porfirio said.  
The Doctor shouted, “What is it with all you simpletons? You bugger brains? You're all human cretins! Come talk to me again after your shark week is over!”  
“Hey!” someone shouted.  
the Doctor continued with enough anger to knock down doors. “You hide in your fears rather than make any progress. You're a stupid lot who will stop at nothing with your ignorance. How dare you?”  
“Never seen a lady get mad like that before,” Hiram commented.  
“Shut up!” the Doctor said.  
The crowd of people, including TJ, began to chatter with each other, and they felt the high winds of the words blow over them like a grand force. There may have been a few deaths today in New Transylvania, but the people in the hall did not act respectful to the notion. Instead they rattled with a childish stir.  
The Doctor made sure to block the attic doors while she crossed her arms, and her eyes offered a glancing, icy glare that made the others think twice about taking the attic stairs. Her stomach churned at the sight of seeing thee people turn into oafs practicing their ridiculous beliefs. Her stalwart form grew into a radiance of fury.  
Was the crowd finally settling down?

Chapter sixty-three  
And yet, from the depths of the crowd, mingling with a staggering walk, was the broad shape of Porfirio Pennington as he carved a route through the large knot of people. His footsteps became a serious stampede as he struggled with sadness on his face.  
His massive frame tottered slightly as he felt the pinch of hurt in his heart, like a man who became vulnerable. His bold arms lifted a young woman with a powerful strength as he stepped further into the crowd. The sea of people parted as he moved towards the Doctor like a man looking for answers. He was holding his daughter Maggie in the hook of his hands.  
Her beautiful frame seemed smaller, her lovely face folding into sleep. Was she dead? Some of the villagers gasped and gazed on as Porfirio bought his daughter into safety.  
“She is... unharmed,” Porfirio said.  
“What happened to her?” Hiram said.  
“You all trampled on her, got reckless. She's lucky to be alive.”  
The crowd of villagers looked shocked as their faces basked in a passing confusion, sluggish concern. Some of them spilled with a choking gasp while Porfirio's chest tightened with a sadness.  
With a gentle pause, and ready hands, the Doctor caressed Maggie's face as her fingers dragged along the young girl's cheeks. She resembled a mother tending to a favorite child. The Doctor couldn't find any concussions in the girl's state of mind.  
“She's got a minor fracture,” the Doctor announced. “You should bring her up to the attic where we can take a closer look at her.”  
“I don't trust you,” Porfirio confessed.  
“Then start trusting yourself to do the right thing,” the Doctor said.  
“Let her try it,” Hiram said to his friend Porfirio. “They seem like a good lot to me.”  
With a gentle stir, the crowd of folks began to look round at Porfirio as he carried his daughter up the attic stairs with slow creaks. He moved with a sure-footed grace like a man climbing up to heaven, his stately form like a guardian giving his daughter the utmost care.  
The villagers grew into horrified witnesses at what transpired here, and they became lost souls wrapped in muddled emotions. A feeling of happiness and terror poured over them while they watched the innkeeper moving towards the impromptu clinic.  
The Doctor turned to the crowd that still swayed in the Frankenstein castle hall like a row of waiting crows sitting on a telephone line. Her eyes embarked with an uncorked anger that could drive a burning hole into them. These people looked more like a wrongful mob than a peaceful flock jam-packed with disheveled shame.  
None of them dared go through the Doctor.  
The uncomfortable silence wrapped a round everyone as they stood in the middle of the long, drag hallway. Their muted presence seemed to hold off against the Doctor's singular figure. She looked like a woman who welcomed war.  
The Doctor said, “You don't need to do this by making empty threats. You stood firm with your beliefs, but you never overstepped the line. Make sure you don't tonight.”  
“The Doctor might be right,” Hiram said. “We're all liable to become fools.”  
“Dr. Frankenstein, despite his flaws, was able to correct his mistakes tonight,” the Doctor continued.  
“What does that mean?” Hiram said as he struggled to get into the front of the crowd.  
“The nightmares that came to your village has stopped. You have nothing to fear anymore.”  
“So is this true?” Hiram said.  
“I watched Frankenstein battle his worst fears, and overcome them. I suggest you do the same.”  
“You're always full of answers, aren't you?” Hiram said.  
“Yes, I am. I might suggest you rebuild your village. There might be some casualties.”  
“Yeah, she's right,” Hiram said.  
“You've become a heartland of broken dreams. It's time to fix that. Don't make the mistake of destroying what you have.”  
TJ moved to the side of the Doctor, his teetering form anchored near her shoulder.  
“That's a pretty speech,” TJ said.  
“Thanks,” the Doctor said.  
It was always difficult to find the common ground, and it could take some time to work together. It was the innkeeper's daughter Maggie whose random injuries put a lid on the whole debacle now. Logic and good sense seemed to be the key to starting over. The Doctor had always been a good diplomat when it came to these things.  
Science wasn't the enemy here, but ignorance was. The villagers needed to remember that. The stillness in the air grappled them as the sadness painted their features. Hiram looked like he was going to make a public apology, his stammering whittled away to silence.  
Hiram blew out his breath as he nodded to his colleagues. It would be better not to stoke this fateful night by removing their disdain. The first thing to do was to extend a hand in friendship without further clamor. 

Chapter sixty-four  
Epilogue  
the wary skies found the first remnants of sunlight, pouring thick, while the terrible savagery that once ailed the village would no longer trouble the town of New Transylvania. This promise of sunlight, chipping away the parting clouds, covered the wasteland with soothing hands of brightness. It became a needful thing.  
How the castle seemed less a threat and more of a temple offering salvation. Those pressing walls, and the high windows, became open to the people without needing the closed gates.  
Now the hanging sunlight trickled with hope as it scrambled, with delight, around the castle of Dr. Frankenstein. Its gothic presence seated on the cliff like a harbinger.  
In the small room in the top floor of the castle, a negotiation of locked doors, there was some people who needed help. The rest of civilization seemed to be non-existent to the single woman who drew something on the wall with crayons, chalk or whatever she could get her hands on.  
Something nagged her thoughts.  
Adeline's mind was still in the abyss in which she sank into, and her frenzied state might remain this way even if Dr. Frankenstein helped her. She was still communicating with her thoughts, and expressed herself through pictures. Udon made sure to give her an endless supply of crayons.  
Without knowing it, Adeline had a couple of visitors while she wrote on the walls with a stark madness. The awful poison combed through her thoughts while she tore across the walls like a flitting wind. Her hands fell into a baffling claim to drawing.  
“Is she going to be all right?” Maggie said as she stood on clutches outside the door.  
“I tried to help her as much as I could,” Udon said. “But her mind seems to be far gone.”  
“The drawings she's making doesn't make sense. Is there nothing you can do for her?”  
“I do what I can to make her feel comfortable.”  
“Thank you for offering me the job to work in your castle,” Maggie said.  
“Your father didn't approve,” Udon said.  
“My father's very much like that. He likes working his business, and thought I'd take over. So don't mind him.”  
“I'll try not to.”  
“He doesn't mind it. And the castle isn't far from the village.”  
“I don't know if my Adeline will ever get well again. The shock of the nightmares robbed her mind.”  
“I'm sorry about that,” Maggie said. “Really. It's sad.”  
“I wonder what she's drawing?” Udon said.  
They looked on the splash of art that was covering the wall, and the flight of her fingers moved in haste to tell the story in a visual, arcane setting. Now the art looked more like scribbles as Adeline bumped up her pace like an artist making her next masterpiece.  
What was she drawing? The alabaster walls, and the polished smooth of cement, were covered with the grander of fascination that showcased a blue box in the background.  
In front of the blue box were what looked like two women strangling each other for an eternity. One of the women was dark-haired and pretty, and the other one carried madness in her eyes. It grew into a very lively picture like a page of secrets. Could one of them be the Doctor with the long, flowing black coat and the ruffled shirt? It could be.  
Was the blue box flying or standing still? And the two women in the picture? Where they lovers in a struggle to the death? That looked like a vow of togetherness that could only be smothered with the lifeline of hatred. The picture looked parched with deeper swill of colors, and the detached feelings hanged on that drawing in progress.  
It settled over the imagined battle between forces beyond Adeline's understanding, but she continued to draw her vision as best as she could. The ravishing look exploded in her eyes while she giggled slightly over the childish banter between the two women in the picture. Beneath the picture, however, grew a more somber thing: it looked like an army of endless soldiers clambering over the landscape like a fleet of monsters.  
“Time will stop,” Adeline muttered, “Time will stop.”  
The two witnesses at the door continued to watch Adeline crawl around in her small room while saying nothing. There was no mistaking that Adeline was playing with thoughts on a much different, higher plane. Udon watched his servant with a passing sadness, his face long with regret.  
“I don't understand what she's talking about,” Maggie said.  
“Maybe the Doctor would know,” Udon said. “We'll need to bring her here. “  
“Didn't you know?” Maggie replied. “Nobody can find her here. It's like she left without anyone knowing.”  
“She didn't leave a message?”  
“No.”  
“Nothing seems to surprise me anymore about her.”  
“I don't know. She's like a wind blowing through this town. And now she's gone.”  
“A perfect magician never gives her secrets,” Udon said.  
“I haven't seen her this morning. It's like she's made a hasty departure.”  
“Such a long walk without taking a carriage.”  
“She's an odd duck.”  
“And we don't even know here name. Some of villagers thought she was Dr. Van Helsing.”  
“It's not even her name. Doctor? Doctor who?”  
“That's too bad,” Udon said. “She's like another mystery never to be solved.”  
Morning broke through the windows like falling hammers, bright and elusive, while the dormant bliss of the countryside was soothed by the comforting brightness.  
Once more New Transylvania offered a few views of old huts mixed in with technological computers that aided their farming lifestyle. In the distant future, windmills flapped with a shudder. Some shadows still scratched the bungled doors of houses like unwanted guests. 

Chapter sixty-five  
The blue box remained in the side road while the village lingered with a soft breeze that shuffled between the old houses. Not far down the road was the Pennington Inn that was seeing some rebuilding after last night's frenzied marks of savagery.  
Now the damages were being repaired while the people heaved together with a shared goal. It became a community again instead of a terrorized town of nightmares.  
The Doctor fished out a key from her pockets while she stood outside her blue box, and she made a small movement as she unlocked it with a glittering smile. The TARDIS' definitive shape stood out from the slew of old buildings that was a reminder of earth's bygone days. TJ watched as the Doctor pushed the door open to the familiar humming noise.  
“Did we have to leave so fast like that?” TJ said.  
“Well, we're busy people,” the Doctor piped. “You know that,”  
“Seems a bit rude.”  
“Better to vanish like shadows than to overstay your welcome.”  
“Oh, is that your way of saying you don't like to hang around for long good-byes?”  
“Yes.”  
“Aren't you worried I'll become a werewolf again in the TARDIS?”  
“Nothing to worry about. All the mental connections are now broken with the dreams. You're free of it.”  
They were ready to go inside the giant chambers of the waiting blue box, and the engines of time pummeled with ribbons of energy. There were no visible scratches on the outer shell since the TARDIS could heal itself without a problem. TJ gestured for the Doctor with a broad sweep.  
“Ladies, first,” TJ said.  
“Don't you start,” the Doctor said.  
The Doctor ignored him as she pulled herself together to enter the lavish beast of machinery that waited for her. This wooing humming continued as the indoors residents stepped into the console room that welcomed them like technological poetry.  
The Doctor tugged at her dress that got caught on the side of the TARDIS door, reminding herself never to wear these clothes again. Her long breath of hair dangled like soft curtains while she made sigh on her lips while inside. She tilted her head slightly while a corner of her mouth lifted like she was in a doubting mood.  
She stepped around inside the magical kingdom of the TARDIS that flickered with controls and buttons that gave a lively thrill. The long shadows collected like dust while the jutting figures made their way around the hexagonal console in the center.  
The Doctor settled her hands on the switches as she moved in elegant, broad steps, her beautiful features hanged with an eager bliss. The machine seemed to awaken when she stepped inside.  
She'll have to check for the console which would be creating a new sonic screwdriver for her, and it'll come to her soon. She missed the older one which had a very good design. Perhaps the next one will be better?  
Without delay, the Doctor looked with passing interest as she began reading the coordinates while imagining herself like a dolphin swimming, exploring the regions of time and space to ease her intellectual curiosity. The machine felt warm to her touch.  
“Where are you going to do next?” TJ said.  
“Somewhere new,” the Doctor said.  
“Something new? I don't know if I like the sound of that. It's just asking for trouble.”  
“I could take you back to fifteen hundreds China. Maybe you have family who misses you.”  
“I'm not sure if I'm ready to go back,” TJ said. “Some things in my country never change.”  
“It wouldn't be so bad. I could take you there a few minutes after you left.”  
“I can't wrap my head around that,” TJ said. “You must cheat your way around the universe.”  
The Doctor closed the doors with the raw sound erupting like a mechanical whirl as the grinding shutters snapped together. Now the TARDIS was like a labyrinth moving through the wake of the cosmos.  
She checked for the numbers while shutting the doors which made a grand slam that was dramatic. Her fingers worked the system like she knew every crack and bolt in it. The TARDIS remained stagnant for a moment while she turned on a few knobs, but the stillness grew. The Doctor hit the console with the bottom of her fist to get the machine rolling.  
She used to do that from a different time, didn't she? It was a long time ago, and she figured the TARDIS was just getting old. Sometimes old habits would die hard.  
Now the roaring thunder of the machine barking between the walls while the fantastic sounds lifted into a more hopeful message. The ceiling and floors flickered with life. The vertical column lifted up and down with a throttle of renewed energy.  
“I know one thing for sure,” the Doctor said.  
“What's that?” TJ said.  
“After what happened here on New Transylvaia, it's gong to put me off watching horror movies for a long time!”  
The whirlwind of noises fueled while the engines clashed with the screeching power that ignited—the movements poured with a mainstay of thrusting, aimless wander.  
Now the lovely splitting of the TARDIS shifted back into the universe, vanishing into the air like a magical act.  
Such a bold career of the machine continued to meander through the drifting winds of space while the chimes of flight reached a fullness that traveled like a roving vagabond. Such a bohemian life never offered a shortage of interesting places to go.

THE END

 

Approximately 37,391 words.  
Sept. 14, 2014. Updated on July 17, 2016.


End file.
